only a half marathon...?

I am 37 years old. I have been running practically my whole life. Not just from my ma's instructions and homilies and lately from my two kids tantrums and tears, but literally running.

By which I mean I ran when I was a kid, sprints and stuff, a 100 m, a 200m, and my favourite, the 100m hurdles.Then I started playing basketball, and it was much more fun to play basketball with a whole bunch of kids and be really good at it so that the boys thought you were cool, than it was to just run and shine all alone for a few minutes every year on Sports Day. So I took up basketball seriously for the next ten years of my life, and only ran as part of training. But every now and again, when it would rain, I would still put on my running shoes and run. Just anywhere.

And when I started working, I found it was the simplest thing to do, right after work and before I hit the bars, just to get out there and pound the streets for a bit. Just enough to build up a healthy thirst for one more beer! On holiday or in a new city, I would slip some cash into my socks, get out the front door and just start running. Anywhere, any twists and turns and lefts and rights, up little cobbled roads and down windy side paths. And when i was tired, I would hail a cab and tell them my address and arrive back home in style.

But though I have run for all my life, I have never ever run long distances. Call it a hangover from my sprinter past, but I mostly have stuck to 5-6 kms. A half hour run or so, that's it.

Last year I decided I wanted to run a half marathon. Uh uh. Terrible shin splints. Couldn't run for three whole months. Had to start again from scratch, and had to go to a gym to basically build up muscle strength and stuff.

This year, in one month and one week, i.e on Oct 15, I am planning to run my first half marathon. The Hutch Delhi Half Marathon, in New Delhi, India. I am totally scared. I have only been running about 9 kms or so still, four times a week, though I cross train and swim alongside. But there's a huge difference between running nine kms and twenty one. And swimming's not exactly running.

This week I have to do a long run of at least 11-12 kms so that the next week my long run can be 14 or so. Then 17. Then the last week I hope to just do the big one. 21.

am scared. Of everything. I am scared I will have to go to the loo midway and anyone who has ever used Indian public loos will know that that alone is enough to strike terror into the bravest of hearts.I am terrified I will get shin splints again. I am terrified I will not get shin splints but just give up mid way, hail a cab and come home, like I have so many times before, across three continents and over twenty years.

Well I dont know what's going to happen, but I'm sure tense about it. Relax, my husband who has never run anywhere, except to the golf course every weekend, told me. It's only a half marathon.

Only a half marathon....?

Watch this space.