The bluffers guide to a half marathon.

Decide to do the race at the last minute, make sure you haven't planned or trained towards it at all.

Make sure you have never run the distance. In fact keep any running you do under 5kms.

Two days before the race eat and drink as much as possible. I recommend the Dom Perignon 1999. Exceptional. Wash this down with at least 5 pints of heineken. Not necessarily in that order.

Get a rotten nights sleep.

Get to where you are going, register, then go out and buy some gear (socks, shorts etc.)

On the night before the race, eat as much as possible. To aid digestion of the Goats cheese, scallops, pannacotta and 1/2 bottle of pouilly fume, I recommend a peppermint tea to aid digestion. Drink a lucosade sport before bed.

Get a rotten nights sleep.

Get up, have a Lucosade Sport, two poached eggs, two sausages, some brown bread, toast and two cups of coffee.

Pee. A lot.

Tog out and run the marathon. Make sure that you have vaselined your balls and nipples throughly.

Feel a sense of elation and satisfaction at having run a 1/2 Marathon.

Eat a banana and some snickers. Go and eat a throughly repulsive lunch. Have a pint of Guinness.

Begin to feel pain, drink some more lucozade sport. Eat a three course meal, Drink a bottle of wine (Bordeaux, if possible). End the night with a gin and tonic.

Wake up. Really feel extreme pain. Have breakfast (full irish). Have a bath. Go home, go to bed.

Wake up. Feel less pain. Go to work. Go for a swim. Go to bed.

...TBC...