LAP DOG | April 28th 2008

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George Mallory once said he wanted to climb Mount Everest "because it is there." (He disappeared while trying.) Kate Galbraith, with blistered feet and sore muscles, cites a similar reason for why she is training for the Boston Marathon ...

Five years ago, I retired from marathon running.

It was after the 2003 London marathon. Around the 18th mile, my right knee, always questionable during long runs, gave out. I started to leave the course at Canary Wharf to catch the Tube when one spectator yelled "Don't be a quitter". Hating him, hating life, I dragged myself the last eight miserable miles. Then I swore off marathons forever. It was, of course, a temporary retirement.

I started running when I was 14. The summer before ninth grade, my older brother offered me $100 not to sign up for the cross-country team (of which he was the captain). I joined immediately.

I love running, but I am not a fanatic. I have a friend who runs marathons almost every month, and occasionally adds an ultra marathon (generally 50 miles or more) for a little extra sadism. She's crazy.

I ran competitively during my first two years of college--varsity as a freshman, then demoted to junior varsity when enough decent runners showed up. Now I just enjoy it. I run to relax, to enjoy the outdoors, and to feel fit.

So why am I running the Boston Marathon this year? George Mallory, who disappeared while trying to climb Mount Everest, had it about right: "Because it is there." I am spending the year in Boston, and the Boston Marathon is the oldest (the first was in 1896) and probably best-known annual marathon in the world. Besides, I like a challenge, and the memory of my London trauma has faded.

But challenges can be unpleasant. That is my opinion today, midway through a 20-mile run, the "peak" of my training. I am doing seven tedious 2.5-mile laps around a pond in Cambridge, plus about a mile to and from my house.

At first, I feel great. I dodge dogs with gusto. During my second lap, two men pass me, which raises my competitive spirit. I increase my pace to stay close behind them, and find myself doing five 7.15-minute miles. That is much faster than I need to go to complete the marathon in my target time of 3:40.

Then things start to unravel. By lap five, I am faltering. Even listening to Bon Jovi on my iPod (a cherished leaving-London gift from Economist colleagues in 2005) does not help. My favourite running song has the refrain "We're halfway there / Living on a prayer". I used to run 400m intervals on the track in high school, humming that tune in my head and praying that a baseball from a nearby game would strike me.

Finally I get home--19.5 miles in a respectable 2:40--and inspect the damage. My feet resemble a lunar landscape: a mass of uneven, white, ballooning blisters have sprouted. I can barely walk, much less easily climb stairs. At risk of providing too much information, my jog-bra has rubbed against my skin and...well, let's just say that this is one of the hidden benefits of being currently single and not at the beach. It looks bad.

My training schedule can best be described as haphazard. I do a long run once a week, then run every other day, about four or five miles. There is no speedwork or practice racing, aside from an occasional soccer game. I only stretch when it hurts.

My goal is to train for the marathon--and train well--with minimal disruption to my life. Frankly, it sounds absurd enough when, once a week, I inform friends that I'm going out running at 10am, and won't be back for at least two hours.

I am reassured to note that Lance Armstrong, who will also be running the Boston marathon (somewhat in front of me), takes a similarly laissez-faire approach. When asked by Runner's World about his training, he explained that he liked to run on sunny days. If it is sleeting, however, his view becomes "Well, I'll just skip it all."

(*This is the first instalment of a diary on marathon training, published on Economist.com. Kate Galbraith is a Nieman fellow at Harvard and a contributor to The Economist since 2000.)