This April, I was due to finally run the London marathon.

I even wrote in January about how to run your own marathon in 2007.

See, I have wanted to run the London marathon for a long time and it looked like this year, on 22nd April, I was finally going to achieve one of my life long ambitions.

However sadly I have had to withdraw due to an old knee and ankle injury flaring up. My osteopath cousin advised me not to run for a few months whilst she helps me heal the injury. In three weeks time on the sunday of the race I will once again be amongst the spectators.

Apart from being disappointed, what can I learn from this temporary setback?

The real problem was too much training and starting the training quite late. I could have also consulted my osteopath cousin much sooner – after all she has run a few marathons herself.

So the life lessons are:-

1. Allow more preparation time for my goal.

2. Tackle my goal gradually rather than throwing myself into it.

3. Get expert help from the beginning.

4. Don’t give up. Cheer up – there is always next year:-)