Yesterday was my last long training run before the Taunton marathon. Twenty miles round a not-particularly-inspiring circular road route, keeping within a few miles of home.

Marathon training’s always a little odd. Each week, you push yourself to the limits of your endurance and just a little beyond. Each time, you think there’s no way you could ever run any further. And yet you do.

But this time around, training’s been just that bit weirder.

I started out full of confidence. I spent most of last year, from May onwards, regularly running long. Instead of having to build up my endurance from scratch as usual, I began ‘proper’ marathon training in January already running 20 miles and feeling… well…. pretty good.

OK, it was mostly on the trails and I needed to get my road legs back again, but there was plenty of time. My plan was to mix up my long runs, alternating road and trail, to keep things interesting and make it easier on my legs.

All went swimmingly to begin with. I was building up the miles on the road again without too much effort, and loving the chance to spice things up with some off road running. It wasn’t the usual marathon training slog at all. I felt smug. Very smug.

But you know what they say about pride and falls? Well, my falls came courtesy of multiple turned ankles, the last of which was too painful to run on.

So by the end of February, confidence was evaporating fast. Instead of fine tuning my running for Taunton on April 12th, each long run has been a test. Should I or shouldn’t I? If the ankles became really unhappy, time to be sensible and give up on a marathon for this spring.

But so far, so good. They’re holding up, and it’s looking as though Taunton may not be such a crazy idea after all.

I’m missing the trails already. Marathon training’s feeling more of a slog again now I’m stuck on the roads. And I won’t be breaking any records on race day. But it’s looking as though I’ll make it to that start line. And right now, that’s enough.