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What a fantastic day!
After being petrified and only just able to force some toast down for breakfast in the morning it turned out to be a brilliant day and a fantastic experience.
We had loads of text message from friends and family in the morning that started a few watery eyes but gave us just the encouragement we needed.
Once we were in the park along with the thousands of other runners it was fine. We just couldn’t believe how well organised it all was. We lined up at the very back of the the start in Zone 9! so we didn’t even hear the start gun and in fact it took us about 20 minutes to get to the start line.
The crowds along the way were amazing – we had had our names put on our charity vest so people cheered for you all the way round. The water stations and lucozade stations were perfectly spaced and seems to be there whenever you’re thirsty – like magic. At mile 4 or 5 you reach the first lucozade station which you know about without seeing the lucozade as your feet start sticking to the road!
The rain was a little challenging. At mile 6 we were drenched and then dried off (apart from the feet) by mile 10. Luckily neither of us suffer with blisters as I’m sure the people that do suffered quite a bit with the added soggy feet. It rained again at mile 21-23 and the cold set in but by mile 24 we were too excited about the finish line. We hit the wall at mile 21 and was a hard slog to get to our supporters at 22 but we made it and then only a few more miles until our next support at mile 25.
We ran along side all sorts of different runners, rhinos, mr men, a flowerpot man, a big samaritans phone, numerous men in thongs and mankinis, the big wellchild nurse and a sausage dog!
Seeing the finish line was amazing and such a great feeling. I was very excited about the official foil wrap at the end as much as the medal.
Thank you to all our supporters – my mum and dad, Greg and Nat, Dawn and Heather, Alison and Denise and Jonathan who stood in the pouring rain and cold weather to cheer us on. And thanks to all the people who sent us messages that weekend and on the morning of the race – just what we needed
We raised over £3500 for our charity BAAF and thank you to everyone who sponsored. You can still sponsor few a few more more weeks and here is the link: JustGiving
Here are a few pictures that Jonathan took of us on the day:
Just wanted to write a last blog post before marathon day. We are both REALLY nervous but quite excited too. Can’t believe it is hours away. We are travelling up on Saturday and staying overnight. We’ve been consuming non stop pasta (it seems like!) this week in preparation and did our last training run of 2 miles last night.
We went to the FLM expo on Wednesday to pick up our numbers so it really is official. They played the BBC Marathon theme tune as you walked in which started the butterflies and the watery eyes! Full of stands with stuff to tempt you and bargains too! Great motivational speakers and advice for the day so it was well worth going.
Thank you to everyone who has sponsored us and wished us luck – the support has been amazing. Also to the brave ones who are coming up to watch us on Sunday – my mum and dad, Zo’s mum, Greg and Nat, Heather and Gayle, Alison, Ange, Denise and Jonathan – thank you in advance – it really means a lot and will really help us get round.
Our charity BAAF will be at mile 13 and 22 and good luck to the other runners Gemma and Andy who are also running in the bright orange BAAF vests and Harvey from BAAF who will be running for the second time.
See you all at the finish!
Our first taper week which meant smaller runs in the week and an 8 mile run at the weekend. Our joints have become a little warn and weary so we did our training this week mostly in the gym to give them a rest as much as possible from the concrete pounding and will continue to do so this week.
One more week to go and then it’s the marathon – unbelievable really! The nerves have really kicked in this week and we keep having to remind ourselves that we have completed 20 miles so we can do it and not to worry – easier said than done though – eek!
Bit of a tiny disaster on Saturday- I tried opening a jar of pasta sauce from Marks and Spencer and managed to pull a muscle in my shoulder. I shall be writing to M&S to complain that even a finely tuned marathon althlete can’t open their jars – I had to go next door and ask David to open it – luckily he is a slightly more tuned marathon athlete also!! So lots of physio exercises (again) for me this week – to make a change. Could do without another muscle ache this week. Grrrrr.
Total miles this week: 14
Lessons learnt: M&S tighten their pasta sauce jars too tight! Must look at buying shares in an Ibuprofen company.
A week full of aches and pains. The 20 miles certainly took it’s toll and the aches and pains took hold this week. Consequently we couldn’t do a full week of training despite desperately wanting to. Also we were zapped of energy and became quite tired – to be expected I suppose. So after feeling elated having done the 20 miles, we were then a bit disappointed at not having a good following week. The sessions we did do were in the gym to try and ease Zoe’s hip joint pain giving them a rest from the concrete.
Our weekend run of 12 miles was also cut short by poor preparation food wise (you’d have thought we would have learnt by now!!) leaving it too long after breakfast. So only 6 miles were achieved but we did try out our charity vests to make sure they were ok to run in so we felt a bit conspicuous in our matching bright orange tops!!
This was the first time we decided (stupidly) to leave the mobile phone at home as it was ‘only’ 12 miles and it was the only time we could have done with a lift home having stopped 6 miles from home.
Total miles this week: About 10 and some in the gym cross training.
Lessons learnt: ALWAYS take a mobile or at least 20p for the phone! if the run is longer than about 6 miles. Terribley embarrassing having to walk into a shop and ask to borrow the phone or flag down a taxi when one is in one’s fancy bright orange running gear.
