Ever hear the story of the hare and the tortoise?

What about the one with the hare, the tortoise and the incredibly slow badger?

I am not, in any way, shape, or form, motivated to train for the Great North Run. It's all of a few weeks away, and I've managed a couple of short training runs and a bit if walking. Doing the Great North Run dressed as a badger is so far past my comprehension of the idea of something uncomfortably painful that I can't even get past the point where I imagine that September is actually going to end, and we're actually going to go through with it.

Last week I managed to get up twice at 6.30 in the morning to do two training runs of about 3 miles each. The first day, I wasn't sure if it was the early hour or the running I resented so much. By the second day, I definitely knew it was the running. I hate this, and I hate that we agreed to do it, and I also know that's the precise reason I have to go through with it, because people don't give you money for doing things you love. But even the extreme motivating factor of trying to reach our fund raising target has failed to inspire me this time.

I'm not sure how I'm going to get through this, I'm not sure I will get through this and I'm certainly not sure what on earth I'm going to look like trying to do it! Thank goodness for Trudi's artistic vision and sewing machine - if it was up to me we'd have a pot of black paint tipped over us and I'd describe us as "skinned badgers". We did, at least, make one arm of one of the badger costumes on Sunday. Ok, we didn't make it, we pinned it together.

Please, somebody, wake me up when it's all over.

taz.x