ONCE again I have happily agreed to push myself out of my comfort zone in the hope of raising £2,000 for Acorns Children’s Hospice.

I see the next four months as a great adventure in both training and fundraising, which is just as well as I don’t think I will have time for anything else!

I have downloaded a schedule from Runners World, which has me running 5 or 6 days a week for the 16 weeks leading up to the London Marathon on April 26.

The training began this week and has been slow and steady. Slow being a lot slower than I am used to running, because until now the furthest distance I have trained for is 13.1 miles (half marathon). Running slower than you naturally want to, I have just discovered, is a tricky business. Today, if my trusty steed Ron hadn’t been with me with the odometer on his bike telling him our speed, I would have run too fast. It’s all about pacing myself and not falling into the trap of doing too much too soon. A couple of days during the week I got home after training and didn’t feel as though I had been for a run. It was a bit frustrating, but I just kept telling myself “it will get harder!” No doubt about that. Working out the pace times for the different types of run is a nightmare to a group exercise instructor like me who only ever needs to count in 32 count phrases to music! Luckily Runners World once again sorts this out for you. You can punch your times in for a recent race you have done eg a 10 miles, half marathon, 10k etc, and its all automatically worked out for you. On their website you can also find out the difference between slow runs, easy runs, tempo runs, speed-form and something called Yasso 800’s!

It’s not been the best of starts to a training schedule, what with the sub zero temperatures, but also as I was not really 100% health wise and had a bit of a cold. Advice from Runners World is that if the illness is above the neck ie a head cold, runny nose etc, its ok to carry on training, below the neck illness ie a chesty cough, then you should take a rest from training.

Next week has me running a couple of easy sessions, a couple of interval/speed sessions and a longer run of 9 miles on Sunday. (Slow!) To visit my fundraising page go to www.justgiving.com/vikkisivertsen.