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!)