For those who have decided to take up running recently, you are most certainly not alone, writes Hannah Webster.

I have decided to make it my aim to get through to all of you people who think it would be great to run a marathon but see it as impossible. It’s not.

Growing numbers of people across the country are taking up running with more and more races popping up, including the Lichfield half marathon which will be the city’s inaugural event in May, and the Birmingham half marathon which was started a mere three years ago.

I first started running when I trained for the first Birmingham half marathon. That seemed almost beyond the reaches of possibility for me at the time.

And when I had done the training and got around the course, I remember all too clearly that thought afterwards of “I will never, ever do anything like that ever again”. But within weeks I was dreaming of bettering my time and maybe even completing a marathon. I had caught the bug, and so many other people are getting hooked by the sport each year, demonstrated by the proliferation of running events that are springing up and the introduction of running gear to mainstream sports shops like JJB Sports.

The ultimate challenge of the marathon is still considered by many to be the Holy Grail, but I’m here to tell you that it is most certainly achievable. Hell, if short, squat little me can run a marathon, so can anyone else with a half-decent level of determination. Where once marathons used to be small races with a handful of elite athletes, they are now huge mainstream events and the New York Marathon – which I am hoping to get in shape for in November – now has 45,000 runners each year.

It’s not supposed to be easy, in fact it’s horrendously hard, but it is do-able. This is why the big M has become so much more mainstream in the last 20 years or so, and this is why running holiday operators like Sports Tours International are becoming so successful. I am doing the New York Marathon with Sports Tours, who sort out the whole package for you including race entry, and the company has said more and more of its customers interested in New York come from the West Midlands each year.

So, here’s the challenge. Put your foot down and commit to an amazing feat like the New York Marathon, if for no other reason than to shed West Midlands’ reputation as the fattest region in the country. I promise you, you will get the bug too.

* To book a place in the New York Marathon, or any other running holiday, contact Sports Tours International by visiting www.sportstoursinternational.co.uk or telephone 0161 703 8161. All entrants are advised that race places fill up very quickly and to book as soon as possible to be assured of entry.