Hi – this is my first blog entry.  I’m setting this page up to record some thoughts initially based around my training for the Great North Run in 2013.

Last night I received the email from the event organisers that my name had been picked out of the ballot for the half marathon on Tyneside in November.

This will be (fingers crossed) the fourth time that I have entered the event having run in 2006,7 and 8. Since then I have been running the shorter (but more local) Great South Run instead.

However, having done something nasty to my Achilles in training for the 2011 event I spent almost all of last year slowly gaining weight and losing fitness.

Thanks to the magic hands of Reza; a Hastings based Iranian Body-building sports masseur, I’m now ready to start again.

Having had a year with no events at all I was keen to make a return to the biggest and best mass participation run in the world. (I’ll explain why I agree with that in a later blog).

And here I am. I wasn’t really expecting to get in on the ballot and thought I’d need to get a guaranteed charity place instead. But here i am, straight in and accepted. That doesn’t mean I’ll not be pressing you for donations though (my WordPress avatar might give you a hint…)

Watch this space!