26.2 miles done!

And so on the 25th of April, in the year of 2010 I ran the Virgin London Marathon!  I didn't just run the marathon, I raced the marathon coming in at 4 hours, 50 mins and 53 seconds and beating a British Legion Fridge.

My legs are sore still but I'm wearing my medal with pride at work and enjoying a little bit more glory.  I wanted to share with you all some of the great moments of my marathon in thanks for all of your support.

The majority of the charity runners started off at Greenwich Park at the red start where we were subject to a bit of a downpour. This was reassuring after the week's weather stations had been forecasting temperatures of bright sunshine and 22 degrees.  The weather behaved itself beautifully in the end, throwing in the odd shower to cool us all off a bit.

I'd planned to run at about 12 minutes a mile but despite all my efforts to take it easy on the first few miles ran the first half in a quicker speed than I'd done the Milton Keynes half marathon in February.  My right leg gave me pain for about 7 miles and I needed the loo for 3 but then it all disappeared and i throughly enjoyed the amazing support and carnival like atmosphere provided by all the supporters lining the streets. There were families, children, charities, bands, pubs blaring out inspirational tunes. 

I did my best to look out for one of my work colleagues and her first at mile 9/10 but missed our Relate balloons and wasn't until mile 19 that I spotted my sister-in-law to be who managed to get the next couple of snaps.  It was an enormous boost which got me round the next few miles at a decent speed.

Lots of water and sports drinks and some carbo gels helped kept me fuelled and helped me keep up with the Camel (we don't talk about the fact that the camel finished 1 minute faster than me cos I beat the fridge).

When I got to mile 22 I realised I still had an hour left to finish and that it really didn't matter if I went a bit slower and I came out onto the embankment at mile 23 determined to see another of our supporters but alas there were just too many people out there.  It was enough to know that someone was cheering me one and lots of people were shouting out my name from my tee-shirt and "Relate" - was great to get some call outs for the charity.

At mile 24 I spotted, like an oasis in the desert, a big bunch of Relate balloons all shiny and white with our logo on.  Holding the balloons were a couple of my very good friends who had come out espescially.  I grabbed a ballon and took it with me but sadly it fell off it's stick after a few metres.

After this I knew I was flagging but close to the end and I tried to keep my pace up for a good finish.            I was snapped again at mile 25!

And then there was the finish!  I summoned up some extra energy and tried not to cry as I passed over the finish line!  In all the excitement we forgot to take a photo at the end so my final snap was taken in the office today.

In all it's been an amazing experience which truely was about the taking part.  Thanks to the wealth of support I've raised over £2,000 for Relate.  So the biggest thanks in the world to you all out there.  A couple of people have asked if it's too late to donate - the answer is a big NO!  The lines as they say will stay open for a couple of months so please feel free to click in the Virgin Money Giving link on this page.

THANK YOU MY RELATE LONDON MARATHON FAMILY!  YOU ARE ALL AMAZING!

(my final shout out!)

Here comes the sun and 26.2 miles!

Today, as I write we have yet another glorious day of sunshine in London and I'm about to take my book and find a quiet corner on a church bench in the sun and soak up some rays.

This week has been a roller coaster of emotions.  Not just your bog standard thrill machine but one of those that drops you from great heights and has you elated one minute, nervous the next and can make the contents of your stomach come up.  For two whole days nerves gripped me to such an extent that a mere word could have me in tears.  I was just coming out of this when I discovered that the met office were forecasting blazing sunshine and temperatures in their twenties for Sunday - more tears and an overdose of fear.

Fortunately this didn't last forever.  By yesterday I was relaxing, enjoying the slow trickle of "good luck" messages coming in and gearing up for the big run.  After a lovely carb based lunch in St James' Park we headed over to Expo in London's docklands to do the final registration. It was quite exciting to pick up my race number and timing chip for the day and walk away with my red virgin plastic bag!  I am number  50820 and am starting from Greenwich Park in pen 9 - I'm right at the back but I don't really care!

So I'm now just chilling out - my sister-in-law to be in calling round later for some Relate balloons which my curb supporters will be holding on sticks on Sunday and I've just added some more names to my running top.  Still time for some more names and if you want to donate use the links to virgin money giving on this page!  With with the help of friends, family and colleagues I've managed to raise with gift aid nearly £1,900.  Wouldn't it be great to reach the £2,000 mark?!

If you're at home watching on the day Adidas has an app on Facebook where you can track my progress - just put in my race number tomorrow and it will up date with every 5 kms I run.

So with a wealth of luck behind me I'll be off to run the Virgin London Marathon for Relate tomorrow with an enormous grin on my face.

Days to the finish line!

As I write there is 6 days to go to the Virgin London Marathon which should make what I'm about to do i.e. run 26.2 miles in one go a bit more real; but it doesn't.  So I'm spending the week in a little bubble of denial.

This week I get to eat lots of carbs in a kind of anti Atkins diet which I'm really looking forward to.  I have become the type of person so fanatically scours the dietary information on the back of their food packets to work out whether or not it's worthy of consumption, cruelly rejecting items of low carbohydrate value.  All this is aimed to give me the maximum energy on Sunday.

The fantastic news which does seem real is just how much support I've received.  To date you've all helped to generate over £1,700 for Relate and my t-shirt is quickly filling up with names of the people in my Relate London Marathon Family.  One of the main tasks this week is to get the Relate balloons to our brilliant supporters who are coming out to cheer on the day.  I'm also harbouring a secret hope that I get to talk to one of the BBC film crews out covering the run on the day in part for the coverage it would get for Relate and also as I love to be on tv!

So 6 days of carbs, balloons, rest and running to the finish line to go and by the 7th day (Monday) I will be happily, if with achy legs, be at home recovering for running the marathon - I will be a marathon runner!

Sometimes we all need help

After having a few days off to rest a sore muscle in my right leg I went for a really nice run around Regents Park after work yesterday.  It wasn't sunny but all the signs of spring were there from the colourful daffodils to the blossom which had appeared as if by magic on the trees.

Maybe because I'd come from work I was thinking about the targets we set ourselves.  My life seems full of targets; how much I can run? how fast can I do it? how much money can I bring in?  Those are just some of the ones surrounding the marathon but it struck me that runners have high expectations of themselves and sometimes it's hard to achieve everything you want.  Other times we might struggle to do it alone.  Runners have different solutions and ways of achieving their goals. We might join a club and run with company, we might get sports massages and specialist help if we get tragically injured (all injuries being tragic to a runner!).  When I was feeling down about it all at the week a helpful text from my running mentor made me feel heaps better.

Then I realised that the great expectations that runners have are much the same as those we all have when we embark upon relationships. Generally people enter into relationships hoping to be like the swans in the park and couple up for life.  We sometimes forget that relationships are hard and that we might need help when our relationships are tragically injured.  Sometimes people get help from their families and friends but like runners they may need to seek specialist help when things wrong to make things work better or to start again.

Relate do just this in lots of different ways. There is online advice and guidance through their websites, live chat through Relate for Parents and Families.  People can get counselling for adult relationships, families and young people and Sex Therapy.  We also have a range of courses for the public including those which help with parenting, moving on to new relationships when things have ended in separation or divorce and making commitments such as moving in together, getting married or having a child.  There are also books to help like "Baby Shock" which looks at what might happen when a baby comes along.and the recently published "Relate Guide to Finding Love".

So when I reach the finish line in 17 days time I'll have run every step with the support of all those who have helped me - my Relate London Marathon Family.

Coming soon to a blog near you - The Relate London Marathon Family Big T-Shirt!

It's all down hill from here!

There's been a slight delay in blogging due to a combination of work, technological breakdown, fire & flood (at the BT exchange) and some lovely Easter socialising.  Despite all this fun, frivolity and biblical sounding external factors the training has continued.  The Sunday before Easter I successfully completed my longest run - a mere little jog of 20 miles as my brother would have it.  It wasn't fast, it wasn't mega slow and I would probably be safe to say my most sensible run to date. 

Here are some of the things I noticed whilst I ran and ran and ran doing my best impression of Forrest Gump possible without a beard:

• The streets of London really are lined with gold.  Okay - I exaggerate but they do appear to be pretty much littered with pennies.  They are meant to be lucky and I've struggled with the inner me to restrain myself from stopping, bending down and pocketing the shiny discs. Oh that sounds like marathon training is like a computer game with real life players!
• The number of people who drank too much on Saturday night is really quite high.  This is also like a computer game where runners have to dodge the piles of puke on dry Sunday mornings.  It leaves me feeling better that I didn't drink the night before and truly dedicated to my marathon cause.

Having completed 20 miles my mileage now starts to decrease which meant I could ease up a bit this weekend and I have a sensitve muscle in my leg which has required me to take it slowly.

The weekend brought Easter and a whole host of Easter jokes which were kindly supplied by Relate for Parents and Families which added to a very funny time I had with my own family on Saturday where we painted hard boiled eggs and rolled them down a surfboard in lieu of a hill.

So with mileage maxed, it feels like it's all downhill to the marathon which for a runner is not such a bad thing!

I'm nearly there!!