It was late on a Thursday afternoon at the end of September when Penny Brohn Cancer Care sent the email over to the Evening Post.

The deadline for entries for the New York City Marathon was rapidly approaching, it said, and the charity had a spare place.

So, if the Evening Post had a reporter fit/brave/stupid enough to get in shape by the start of November, the opportunity was available.

Muggins over here, being the paper's resident fitness nutter, piped up and said "OK, I'll do it".

"I'm in reasonable shape," I thought. "I've been doing a lot of cycling recently and wow, it's the chance to run a marathon in New York."

I ran the London Marathon last year in just over 3hrs 30mins and I was pretty sure I could manage another one.

The only problem was that a week after that fateful day, I was getting married. Following that was a fortnight of honeymoon. So apart from a couple of long-ish runs I did while on holiday, I've only actually had three weeks to get into marathon shape, plus the next two weeks for winding down.

So now, seven weeks after that fateful email arrived, I've reached my training peak having done a 20-odd mile run last weekend.

My legs are sore, my back's stiff and I've been to some dark emotional places as the toughness of the training regime has kicked in.

But now I'm into 'taper' time for a fortnight, winding down towards the event, and I'm looking forward to it.

I've had some fantastic support from Moti, a running shop on Whiteladies Road, which has given me a team of experts to get through the intensive training I've needed to get through.

During the next couple of weeks, I'll share some of the secrets which have helped me get ready for the event in such a short space of time.