Five go to London

We set off early Friday morning for our much awaited London marathon weekend in the camper. Tony, Andrea, Andy and Emily were setting off at a similar time by train and Paul via train on Saturday morning.

Our journey had a shaky start as I had negotiated an extra half hour in bed which meant we caught the rush hour traffic on the M62 at Leeds and a car fire on the A1. Mr Grumpy calmed down though once we had arrived at Peterborough services for our sausage and egg McMuffin only 30 minutes behind schedule…

Having settled into our campsite at Abbey Wood we caught the train to the Expo to collect our numbers. All very exciting with lots of money spent on running apparel. We met up with the Hall family and had a pleasant couple of hours carbing up at Wetherspoons in Canary Wharf.

Sightseeing came on Saturday with a TAC trip to the Natural History Museum whilst Paul caught the train down to meet us.

As our Race day dawned, I decided to try and enjoy the event and aim to be as strong towards the finish as I would feel during the first few miles – easier said than done. I also gave Chris his usual pep talk about pacing…if he found himself alongside Mo then he’d set off a tad too quick!

Travelling to Blackheath on Sunday morning was like we’d all been captured by aliens and had to descend on the same place at the same time with our bright red kit bags. Chris had forgotten his contact lenses so I had to direct him to the truck to hand his bag over! Time quickly passed and before I knew what was happening, we were in our allocated pens for the Blue start. Paul was in the Red start with the Elite and Good for Age time entries.

We had all pinned on our black ribbons in respect of the people involved in the Boston marathon and it was very touching during the 30 second silence. What got to me most was the heart felt applause afterwards.

All too soon we were off. I quickly set Autumn’s Garmin watch (mine had unfortunately decided to stop working during the week) and set off at my steady pace. Although I got caught up in the sheer volume of runners, I felt as though I was making progress over the first few miles. I made the most of the fantastic atmosphere, high-fiving all the kids, listening to the music and bands playing along the way, and dashing under the showers at the side of the road when I was starting to feel the heat.

The miles fell away and I was still feeling good. At 10 miles I munched on the first half of my Power Bar at Chris’ suggestion; I finished the rest at around 17 miles. I took in the sights – the Cutty Sark (missing Andrea and Emily because of the sheer volume of spectators), Canary Wharf, the Shard, and in particular running over Tower Bridge and soaking up the atmosphere from the thousands of spectators there. Seeing Andrea and Emily at around 15 miles was fab, they said themselves they’d never seen such crowds.

At around 20 miles I noticed a few runners were starting to have problems, there were a few wobbly people and runners laid at the side of the road wrapped in red foil blankets, their stocking feet sticking up in the air. I checked that I didn’t recognise any socks that I thought might be Chris’ and carried on, making sure I picked up a Lucozade Sports drink for the last few miles.

We went through an underpass emerging at the 25 mile marker – this was a great sight. Not far to go I thought, and this time around as I approached 26 miles I even saw Big Ben! I managed a bit of a sprint finish as we passed Buckingham Palace and was happy with my 4:00:44. Looking at the results afterwards I overtook 790 people in the last 7K, only being overtaken myself by 102. Overall I finished in the top third of runners and the top 20% of female runners.

Paul was first TAC with another sub-3 hour PB of 2:59:09. Chris came in at 3:12:44 despite a few “comfort breaks”, Tony also bagged a new PB on 3:21:43 and Andy finished his first ever marathon in an excellent 4:39:38. A good day all round!

We’d already pre-arranged to meet up on the grass next to Horse Guards parade. A pleasant hour was spent recovering, and with Chris deciding to alternate between having a snooze and shuttle running to the loos as part of his personal recovery plan, all was good. I had my usual moan about the finishers T-shirt, or tent as I like to call it, and gave some of my goodies to Emily before we all retired to the pub for a well earned beer and later our tea.

Thanks for all the TAC support too! It was fab to see the chats on Facebook as the race unfolded. Roll on the next one! I can’t believe I said that…