The best inspiration is not to outdo others, but to outdo ourselves

The last two years have been big years for me and proved to me that I'm capable of more than I thought. In 2010 I did my first ever marathon, managed to stick to the training and actually to enjoy the race. However, where this fell down was when I tried to switch back to triathlon later on in the year, I'd only really been training to run and I didn't cope well with adding the rest of it back in. I got worn out and demotivated and it didn't really happen. It was a non-season triathlon-wise. Last year was my assault on the middle distance and I found that my theory of building all 3 disciplines up side by side from the beginning was a a successful one. I completed the Vitruvian far faster than I thought I could and really enjoyed it in the process. And so for the next challenge... I've entered both the Edinburgh Marathon and the Vitruvian, so the trick will be the balancing act that enables me to build up properly for both and not run out of oomph along the way. I'm planning to build all three disciplines and am doing so already, I've upped my protein consumption to keep my muscle mass where it needs to be, I'm making more of compression socks after hard session and I'm even going for the occasional sports massage. I'm giving it everything I can think of - now I just need to put in lots of consistent training. Oh well, that's alright then! The marathon build up has already begun and I did my first hard session yesterday - a 7 mile run (not a problem in itself) but containing 6 hill repeats and then still having to come up the hill again at the end of my cool down. My buttocks know about it today. So there you have it, a plan of action, and it's begun already.