"London Marathon 2025: Getting in Shape Again for the Ultimate Running Challenge!"

The Easter holiday rolls on, and with it comes the glorious gift of sleep — the kind that doesn’t feel like you’re just borrowing time from tomorrow. I woke at a sensible hour, which is a rarity during term time, and the whole family headed out for a grand occasion: breakfast at Wetherspoons. There’s something oddly reassuring about it. The food arrives exactly at the temperature you’d describe as “edible if you hurry,” and the prices mean you can feed a family without needing to remortgage the house. We left well-fed and with the vague sense of having narrowly avoided third-degree tongue burns. Pre-Run Rituals and Gypsy Tart Promises On the way back, we visited the town’s new bakery, which is a danger to both waistlines and wallets. There I secured the all-important post-run Gypsy Tart — the Kentish nectar of victory — before heading home to begin the pre-run rituals. These currently involve lacing up trainers and aggressively applying Deep Heat to my still-complaining back, which ...

The Easter holidays have officially begun and for once, the morning didn’t begin with the dulcet tones of my alarm trying to convince me I’m a morning person. I rose at a sensible hour and managed to wave off Kelly, Daisy and Polly on their grand expedition to Old MacDonald’s Farm in Essex. Emilia, meanwhile, was deeply entrenched in the land of GCSE English Literature revision—somewhere between Macbeth’s ambition and Scrooge’s four ghostly visitations, I imagine. This left me at home with pretty much just myself for company. After a relaxed breakfast and a bit of reading, it was time for the inevitable: the run. A Sensible Man Wouldn't Have Given that my back is still staging the occasional rebellion, I took no chances and lathered on enough Deep Heat to alert satellites. Despite this, I decided that a VO2 Max session was somehow a good idea. Now, VO2 Max efforts are designed to push you to around 90-95% of your maximum heart rate, which is generally the sort of level most peop...