TWO years ago and four and a half stone heavier is where my marathon journey began — although I didn’t know it then.

The road to London may well be paved in gold for some, but for me it’s a hard slog pavement tread of weight loss, tight buttocks and some fundraising thrown in. Oh and a realisation that I do actually quite enjoy running.

The whole concept of “going for a run” had completely passed me by for most of my years. So it wasn’t until I started losing weight two years ago that I realised I could run.

The more weight I lost, the more I could run and the more I seemed to enjoy it. To the point where earlier this year, after completing the Reading Half Marathon with quite a reasonable time of 2hrs and 35mins, I decided to secretly apply for a place in the London Marathon.

I say secretly as I thought I would never get a place and wasn’t sure why I actually wanted to do it so didn’t tell anyone about my application — not even my husband.

I think I felt a fool. I don’t look like a runner. I may have lost some weight but I would still describe myself as frumpy and big-boned with tree-trunk legs.

My confession to him eventually was quite comical. We were walking up a mountain in the Lake District (I’m not sure if it actually was a mountain but it certainly felt like it when I was walking up it, whatever it was). I don’t know if it was the stunning views or the fact that I was actually able to talk to him without either of our children nagging away at our hips that prompted me to ‘fess up.

Anyway tell him I did — at the top of this mountain. I said I had applied for a charity place with the RFU’s Injured Players Foundation but that had been a few weeks before and I hadn’t heard anything and so didn’t think I had been accepted.

We reached the bottom of the mountain and back into the land of living — or mobile phone reception as that means these days –—and ping went my phone. It was an email from the charity to say they loved my application and would like to offer me a place to run the London Marathon for them next year.

I now had a new mountain to climb.