A tough, great day.....We DID it !

Saturday to stay with Stuart in Islington, a lazy afternoon in one of my favourite parts of the City. We meet up with Stuart's friends and go to his regular, local Italian.......'homemade lasagne please' would do the trick to boost the carbs and then onto the '99' Islington Comedy Club for 3 very talented comedians....in bed by 12 and shattered.

Surprised myself and slept like a baby....up at 6.30am for the big day....all prepared....the orange juice, smoothie, 3 Weetabix, extra Vitimin C, coffee for caffeine fix and banana. Stuart takes me to Charing Cross for 7.30am ( top host ! ) and I board the train to Greenwich Park. I am ahead of schedule but everyone else must have had the same idea...arrive early, take it in, chill and enjoy the build up.....we are packed in like sardines.....packed in so tight it was very intimate but the buzz in the air......was electric, the anticipation building of one of the greatest challenges 35,000 of us would ever take on.

Meet up with Lisa from work and Dud, her brother in-law. I decide to start the race with Lisa....we had been on a roller coaster journey to date and it felt right to start the 26.2 mile race with her....everyone is so, so friendly.....transpired the husband and wife team next to us live in the next road to Lisa in Rushden....how mad and likely was that !

Time flies.......9.15 passes and the wheelchair chaps are off, 9.45 the elite runners and soon after....us ! Months of training, months of doubt and this is it. I feel confident but aware we are both going into unknown territory in baking, hot heat.......never doing more than 16 miles in training before.

Lisa and I start together for the first couple of miles running alongside 'The Hoff' and 'Pamela Anderson' Baywatch lookalikes....I'm laughing and applauding them as the crowd cheer them on. The noise of encouragement already incredible and we have only done a mile ! I lose Lisa in the crowded road and then find myself passing the Baywatch team and using Batman and Robin as my new pace makers......my target time is 4 hours 30....my ideal I have not shared with others is sub 4 hours.....I have both pace bands on my arm to measure each mile against the clock.

After each mile I am losing seconds which build and build to put strain on the sub 4 hours.....I beleive I can make it up but it is so congested you just can't get into your Marathon pace.....the pace I'd trained at, was confident at but could not do on the day. I was losing momentum and getting frustrated. At 13 miles coming into Tower Bridge I just smiled, against the blueist sky I could ever remember it was stunning, inspirational.......just WOW ! I thought about what Paul and Andrew had said the day before.......'just smell the flowers'.......and I just accepted I would not do the time but would enjoy every second of the rest of the race !

At my lucky number,19, I hit the dreaded wall.....19 miles.I now have legs of lead and a head of doubt....I ran into Canary Wharf and the air just died and my legs along with it ! People all around were dropping, stopping, collasping with cramp and being looked after by the fantastic St.John's Ambulance team.

At that very point a colleague, Gary Lloyd, from work gave me a huge 'come on Jon! '....his words were enough to kick start my belief system....I will do this and I will make 4 hours 30. Over 3 miles I run, past more colleagues and friends and I'm feeling good as the crowd goes from 5 to 10 deep.....they are deafening......the 82 pubs I've past were all kicking, the bands banging out the big ballads, the deafening crowds shouting your name are the reasons your body and mind JUST DO IT!

With 4 miles to go I'm feeling ok but I must do the 4 hour 30 minutes.My legs a little heavy I catch up with a Royal Marine in full gear, boots and 36lb back pack on this hot,hot day. His knickname is Monty, my knickname is Monty with our names on our shirts the 10 deep crowd screaming 'come on Jon !','come on Monty !', was double the encouragement. We chat together, share stories together and run together. The last 600 metres I have to push on, dig deep and catch my last superhero of the day,'Superman',through the line at 4 hours 30 minutes and 32 seconds.......hitting my target on the nail !

Lisa had severe cramp at 8 miles and often questioned continuing.I'm so pleased she did ! Lisa was bitterly disappointed but you can't do anything if you hit the cramp levels she hit, in the high heat we had she did it when many gave up through exhaustion, cramp or worse.She did it and beat thousands of others including the well publicised attempt by Katie ' Jordan' Price and Peter Andre.

Do it again.....maybe !

A closing, massive thank you to all our sponsors ! We have raised over £ 7000.00 and it is still rising. It will make a difference to the girls ( nurses ) who make the difference for others at Bury and Cynthia Spencer Hospice along with MKSNAP.

We DID it !
THE END.