I have had a slight case of the guilt of the long distance runner. Due to my wife and myself both working shifts we can at times be like ships that pass in the night. Usually this fits in well with my running, but there are other times when it feels like I am sacrificing our time together for my own selfish activities. It does not help that quite often my work will leave me so tired that at some point without warning I can find myself falling from a sitting position to a half hanging off the sofa and probably dribbling just to make it an even more appealing sight.

My wife has been wonderful about my absence and says that if I am going to do something crazy like run another marathon then of course I have to train and to just get out there. It can be hard enough to fit all of the planned runs in some weeks but I dread to think what it would be like to try and train without a supportive partner. I Know one weakness I have is how quickly I can press the self destruct button on a training schedule. One planned run missed can lead to a domino effect where two or three more follow. The strange logic that seeing as I have missed one run maybe it wouldn't matter so much if I missed another one. I am so lucky in having an understanding wife that isn't going to say couldn't you give tonight's run a miss and is much more likely to give me a kick up the backside if I try and come up with a feeble excuse as to why I think it might be okay to miss a run.

Race day may be an individual event but training definitely has aspects of a team sport.