Failure to launch

And here we go again.

Am trying to bribe myself to get some tricky work done by buying cake and coffee and sitting in Nero's rather than in my home office. This is one of my more common avoidance tactics.

The cake and the coffee aren't helping my marathon training or my waistline either. Last summer's clothes are already feeling a bit tight around my middle and my 30 day plank challenge is considerably more challenging with the extra weight I'm carrying.

.... 40 minute chat interlude with student sitting next to me writing his thesis .... that's not helped either! I was trying to lull myself into work by writing about how difficult I was finding it to get started. Now I find that I've lost my train of thought for this post too. Must be time to hold my breath and batter my cuticles.

But, I've made a commitment not to do that anymore. Gosh I really do make hard work of my life. And there goes the inner critic, passing judgement again. Things are what they are - neither good nor bad.

I know, I'll update my to do list.

.... which has just left me feeling a bit sick and searching out a cuticle to attack ....

Talk about going round in circles.

A full two hours after sitting down to start work. The panic is rising and cheeks are flushed.

Another failure to launch day.

Panic, picking and world record marathoning

Do you ever find yourself holding your breath in a subconscious effort to stop time because you believe you have so much to do you can't see a way of getting it all done and you've got no idea where to start?

At some point during the day, I will find myself frozen like a rabbit in the headlights of my to do list. I notice I'm in that place when I realise that I've stopped breathing.

My automatic strategy for creating release is to pick at the cuticles on my thumbs. It makes me feel like I am doing something. "If I can just remove that stray bit of skin, I'll have completed a major task and will be making real progress on my day.Pat yourself on the back. Job well-done."

Really. That's how it feels.

Of course, there's no item on my daily to do list that says anything about completing a manicure with my teeth.

I hate to think how many hours of my life I have spent on this destructive habit. I hate to think how much more I might have achieved if I'd used that time more productively.

Like so many of us living with this kind of habit, whether it's skin picking, nail-biting or hair pulling, I experience a deep sense of shame about both the activity itself and its physical results. It makes me look damaged and feel damaged on many levels.

I've been doing it my whole life. When I hit 30 I tried hypnotherapy which actually did stop me from destroying my fingers; but it didn't work on my thumbs for some reason.

Anyway, I'm really tired of it now. So, I am formally committing to knocking it on the head once and for all. I've found this website on skin-picking which is a great source of information and techniques.

It looks like I've got a shed load of brain rewiring to do. That should tie in very neatly with my training for the Amsterdam marathon in October this year.

If I put the same time into training as I do into picking, I'll be on for a world record time!

Watch this space x

I don't think anyone thought I'd actually do it ....

When I announced at New Year 2013 that I was giving up smoking as the first step in training for the Berlin Marathon my family smiled kindly and said "well done - you go for it, love".

But I don't think they thought I would actually do it.

For the first 7 days in January, I allowed myself to eat and drink whatever I wanted and in whatever quantities I wanted. I'd been a smoker for 29 years and not smoking was leaving a huge void that somehow needed filling.

Then I remembered the last time I gave up smoking.

In the space of 2 years, I gained 3 stone. In the four years after that another 2. Clearly, there were other factors in play too, but still. I had managed to lose a little of that by taking up smoking again, but in January this year, I was still approaching 14 stone. There was no way I could afford to gain even a stone.

So on January 10th, I launched the second stage of my Marathon training plan. I gave up drinking and I gave up cake. And sugar generally. And crisps. And whatever other rubbish was playing too big a part in my diet.

When friends asked how my training was going and I said "great, I've given up cake", they thought I was nuts, told me well done, and talked amongst themselves about how I was never going to be able to run a Marathon.

But what did they know?

Without fags, without sugar, without booze, I had a powerhouse of energy coming alive inside me.

Enough to power 10km brisk countryside walks. Probably enough to run, but I was too scared to run.

Scared of not being able to do it, scared of what I'd look like, scared of hurting myself. Scared.

But I stayed off the fags, lost a stone and kept my drinking to a minimum. By March, I really had no option but to start running. Thank goodness for the Couch 2 5km app.

The groundsmen at the football pitch opposite my house got quickly used to the sight of me plodding my ass round and round in circles. And I got used to feeling like an idiot.

I knew deep down I was going to make it in Berlin. I had such a clear picture of myself smiling in elation crossing the finishing line. I had made a sponsorship commitment to Save the Children and to those that had sponsored me.

There was no way I was going to fail.

In the end, it took me 5 hours and 58 minutes. I smiled the whole way, apart from the last 2 km.

So now I'm going to have to do it all again, to live that vision of smiling across the line.

This time, I'm going to Amsterdam.