Blimey, its been a week since I last blogged but then its been a busy last couple of weeks.

I've had 4 nights away in the last fortnight, 5 meetings last week, I've been as far south as Poole, as far north as Edinburgh, I've been in Newcastle in the heavy snow last week and driven through a blizzard on an untreated Northumbrian road (and scared myself silly). The man flu has slowly got better over the second half of the last week - not quite gone yet - but getting there. Oh, and I sorted the full Christmas dinner menu!

Running wise its gone OK all things considered. I managed to get out on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday but not all as planned as Friday's intervals were replaced by a steady run (due to man flu) and yesterday's 10 mile race was (thankfully) cancelled so I did 10 miles along the snowy and frozen canal with a guy from the running club.

The supplementary exercising didn't go so well. I felt rotten last Monday and missed the reformer class; did the drills on Tuesday, was in Newcastle and Nottingham on Thursday and didn't get back in time to cross train or do the resistance training; and on Saturday I only got half way through the resistance training before having to collect Charlotte from her gymnastics class.

Diet wise its been mixed too. I'd weighed myself the Saturday before last and struck a hefty 12st 10.4lb. On Tuesday, as I drove to Edinburgh, I had a think about what I could or should do.

Here's the plan. Dead simple. I'll be weighing daily for 12 weeks by the end of which I would expect to be at or near 11st.

I know, I know, a complete volte face. The rationale is that I can't afford to continue drifting, particularly with Christmas coming. If I do I'll either face the prospect of not getting to target or having to diet 'firmly' throughout marathon training in the new year. Neither are enticing prospects.

What I'm expecting is that I can steadily lose so that the last 7 weeks of training won't require any restriction on calories beyond maintenance. It even allows for Christmas week 'off' (dieting, not training).

I still think getting away from the scales has to be the long term objective but the marathon is a fixed target that needs a more robust approach.