Kya mein Marathon bhagoonga? (Will/ can I run a marathon?)

Last week I decided that I will run the next Marathon that happens in Bangalore... there is a Wipro Run on 6 Oct. Why a marathon? For a while I have been flirting with getting back to shape... for the last 1 year I have played badminton and squash, done a bit of running, done a bit of yoga, done a bit of meditation... but nothing consistently. Hence, this time around I thought let me start with a goal - I went about looking for one and got an email last week on a "Run on 6 October"! Further motivation for running has come from the following people - Anil Ambani, couple of my client folks who regularly run the London Marathon (they plan 3 months in advance) and my friend Vivek Shukla's father who regularly runs at the age of possibly 60!

Next question I have - can I run a marathon, what should be my target distance? The considerations / background - my body is possibly not suited to long distance running. I am good at short spurts because all the games I have seriously played in my life such as basketball, tennis, badminton... all of them require running quick spurts and then resting for a few seconds before the next spurt. Hence possibly 7 km should be my target? I said 7 km I should be able to do fairly comfortably with some work... hence not good enough - I have decided to try 21 km!! (in corporate lingo this is called stretch goal!)

Making the decision to run and the target distance is the easy part - the hard part is the prep! I have started practising for the past 1 week. Initially day 1 I could run 2 KMs with great difficulty - but within 1 week I am able to run 4 KMs at a stretch and with walking breaks in between 5 KMs is very much possible (good start I would guess).... but still a long long way from trying out 21 KMs. I have around 5 weeks to go... will I be able to run 21 KMs?

I possibly need to do a lot of other stuff - cut down on smoking (more difficult than waking up at 6 am!), watch out for calories (need to lose weight so that my legs can carry on for more time!), eat more healthy stuff (reduce fats, carbs and increase proteins, vitamins?). Actually I have started on all of these... but 21 KMs is still far away!

Wishing myself luck for the next 5 weeks!