I DON’T know the woman in this picture (above), but she has kept me going for the past year.

Whenever I have hit the low points, and there have been many of those in these past twelve months, looking back at this image from last year’s marathon has always raised my spirits.

Here we have ‘Siobhan’ reaching the end of last year’s Walled City Marathon and just look how pleased she is. That’s genuine joy on her face right there. Who knows if she has spotted friends or family in the crowd, who knows if she is just delighted to be finished, but the point is, she is ecstatic.

That’s what I’m hoping to feel next Sunday sometime after 12:30pm. I know I’m going to be struggling, and I know I’ll be in agony, but I want to see that finish line, I want to be conscious enough to be aware that it’s within my reach, and I want to celebrate it, the way I celebrated United winning the Champions League back in 2008.

The only thing standing between myself and ultimate glory is injury. At this stage there’s no other way I’m not going to finish the marathon. I would love to do it in four hours, but ultimately time doesn’t matter. What matters is that it will be done, it will be over, and no one can take it away from me.

My body has to dig deep just one more time. Ever since I ran the 22 miles two weeks ago, there’s been a frostiness there – my mind keeps telling the body to go out a wee five miles or so, the body tenses up and tells the mind it’s spending the night on the sofa. So traumatised am I by that 22, that I am more than ready to call it quits. But I just need one final push.

The sister goaded me into a run with BLAST Bootcamp the other night and I went along, eagerly so after I heard the class was being coached by the master Chris McGuinness. It was nothing out of the ordinary; a few laps of Creggan Park, which in all totalled just over 5 miles, but it was great to get out there again. I don’t want to get too rusty ahead off the big run so I’m planning to go out twice between now and Sunday, just a few miles each time.

I’ve been talking to every man and his dog about the marathon in the past week or so, people who have conquered the marathon, and they all make it sound so easy. The bearded creature that is Steven Doherty spoofs that he was in no shape to run a marathon when he actually did it, and dismissively waved a hand when he said he ran it in 3h 45mins. I would kill a man to get that time, and I’ve been running all year!

Then I was talking about it with the boss, one Ciaran O’Neill, and he basically said Fahan Street was a piece of cake. Here’s a man who shows no emotion at anything, but he’s wan lying brute! I’d wager he ran into his house, right in the depths of Shantallow, and began weeping in his wife’s arms.

‘VICTORIA, DON’T MAKE ME DO IT AGAIN!’

Then there is the machine that is Alan Healy. He’s doing his second marathon and woe betide any meatball that gets in his way. Here is a man on a mission and that mission is 3h 30mins. He’ll likely beat that time and celebrate with a bar of Twirl, 40 lashes and some Norwegian rock music.

Everyone has all the advice in the world for you, but when you come right down to it, it’s down to you and you alone.

When I’m standing beside the Everglades next Sunday, Newbuildings at my back and immortality at my front, it will be me and me alone who will get through those 26 miles. I might meet a familiar face or two along the way, and their encouraging words will do me the world of good, but when my legs are screaming and my head is swimming in and out of consciousness, I’ll have to dig deeper than I ever have.

Of all the challenges I’ve faced, this will be the toughest.

There was the time I spent weeks building up the courage to ask a girl out at the cinema. I had the whole thing choreographed, and my work colleagues at their stations. Like an Oscar-winning director, I nailed it. But it was hard.

There was the time I took part in a Salsa-thon – a challenge of dancing from 9pm right through to 5am the next morning. Again I nailed it. I was fit those days I can tell you.

Then there was the time when, at just nine years old, I walked all the way from Ballymac to Newbuildings, with my da pretending to thumb a lift the whole way out. And the sun was beating down too.

And I’ll never forget the time I stayed up all night and read 60 chapters of Nancy Drew. That was when I was eleven. It was three books in one, and I used to love my Nancy Drew. And the Hardy Boys. Classic stuff. How Frank and Nancy never got it together is a joke!

But those will all be surpassed next Sunday.

Walled City Marathon, we meet at last. In the words of the great man himself. (The Rock)

JUST BRING IT!

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