A mile too far...

I have decided to run a marathon mid-year this year to help me get back into training and lose some of this festive bulk. Here are the options:

• The Cork marathon on June 1st; it is relatively local, familiar and really well organised. I really enjoyed it last year.
• The Prague marathon on May 10th; looks like a nice race. The weather is likely to be warm and I have never been to the city.

I'll have to decide which one to do over the next couple of weeks.

Tonight I ran in the gym. I climbed onto the treadmill with my trusty iPod and foolishly attempted to select an appropriate treadmill program while selecting an good starting song at the same time... I should know by now that multitasking is not something I do well, the results can be disastrous.

After that comedy moment I was on the way with ABBA's Dancing Queen filling my head... my iPod was on shuffle mode and an upbeat tune was hard to come by, I settle for the first one that came past.

3 minutes later I was in full stride when the next musical surprise revealed itself... The End by The Doors; a super slow song that seemed completely inappropriate at the time but turned out to be prediction of what was to come a lot earlier than expected.

After a few clicks of the next button I found a group of uptempo tunes that more or less matched my pace. My plan was to run 3 miles but after only half a mile I felt very uncomfortable in the foot department. As I approached my first mile the situation was getting worse. It was really weird, both my legs felt really tired and sort of numb. I tried to figure it out as I ran and decided that it must be my new trainers. I didn't think trainers had to be broken in but I must be wrong, unless I bought a dodgy pair which would really upset me as I bought them the Washington and that's a hell of a commute to bring them back.

After almost 2 miles I had to stop running but feeling guiltily about not running the full 3 miles I jumped onto a bike and cycled for another 20 minutes. Following that I made for the pool and swam for as much as I could, a pathetic 6 lengths, as I find that swimming does the world of good for tired limbs after a run.

I wonder if my new trainers are from a bad batch. I'll wear them tomorrow night for my 5 miler and decide then.