So the day arrived ....

London Marathon 2005
Saturday 16th April

First, a trip out to the Expo. I arrived about 10.00 so there were virtually no queues to collect numbers. Collected number, chip and kit bag then on into the expo.
I looked briefly at the souvenir kit but decided to come back later (by which time they had nothing I wanted, so saved some money there). On inside and a wander round. At the Asics stand I met CdK – we were both booked in for gait analysis. A stange sensation, running on a treadmill with a rearview of my feet, sometimes in real time – not too bad, but sometimes the view on the screen was a slomo veriso of what I was doing – brain confussled by that – had to look elsewhere. It seems that as I have not had serious problems and injuries and I do not pronate (is it a word, Word spell check doesn’t think so!) much more than the average bear, I am OK to go on with by current shoes (Asics 2010s). Would they have recommended a change if I had been wearing another brand I wonder?
Then a meet with Benz – who was (not surprisingly) buying more running shoes. A phone call to Pix revealed was not very close yet, so we went off to eat a Bagel.
More retail opportunities for Benz and then we found the RW stand and crowd of forumites – including Tigerrunner, RichK, Cougie, and other peeps whose names have escaped me now (was Nicko there?). After some chat and the arrival of Pix and XFRBear, it was another carboloading opportunity – the past queue took half an hour, but we were entertained by the Penguin, John Bryant and Sam Murphy, all with good advice for THE DAY.
Soon I met up with the coach load of Derby peeps who were staying at the same hotel as me and it was off to the edge of civilisation (Essex and the M25). The IBIS hotel was clean and friendly, but sadly lacking in food, which was why I had been carboloading during the day – only a panini or baked potato for evening meal – did not want to risk the curry!
A quiet evening watch the box, reading and listening to music was followed by packing and an early night. Did not sleep too badly and soon the alarm was ringing to say it was.

Sunday 17th April
No porridge for breakfast, so it was a bowl of muesli for me, with a coffee. pack up on th coach and off we go.

Arriving at Blackheath by a circuitous route owning to road closures, there was plenty of time to get sorted. met up with CdK – Pix was stuck on another train. We dumped bags, queued for the loo and then made our way to pen 9, meeting up with other forumites, including Kathy and K2.

First Paula and co went, then the wheelchair racers and finally at 9.45 we were off. It was a slow walk to the start, taking about 12 minutes and then we were on our way. The advantage of being in pen 9 at the blue start is that there were not too many of us – I think the blue start is mostly club places, so they are mainly faster peeps and it was not too crowded.

My plan was to run a mile and then walk the first minute of the next mile and target pace was 13:30 miles, so of course I went too fast for the first mile (12:46) and so it went on. In a more accessible format than a long blow by blow commentary:

I

do

not

know

how

to get

rid
of

this

big

gap

here

distance/miles	av pace for mile	AHR	comment
1	12:46	150
2	13:42	148
3	12:54	139
4	12:53	148	40 minute 5 km - PB, so definitely gone off too fast!
5	16:16	144	stopped to put compeed on toe
6	12:59	151	1:25:45 10 km
7	13:20	151
8	13:43	147
9	13:36	145
10	13:52	145
11	13:59	146
12	15:04	146	stopped to speak to Nicko and Pix
13	14:32	142
14	14:56	142
15	14:21	135	A few tunnels round here loss of signal means mile markers not quite right I suspect.
16	11:15	135
17	15:08	133
18	21:46	133	Brilliant to meet forum supporters at Mudchute – made a real difference – thanks guys.
19	17:53	129	seriously slowing down here
20	9:08	124	more underpasses
21	16:22	124
22	16:23	125
23	15:19	124
24	16:35	120	struggling here - I want to stop when the traffic lights turn red!
25	17:56	120
26	16:05	120
26.2	14:44	137	6:32:28

In short a disappointing time – had hoped for 6 hours. BUT I did complete it!

Excuses: it was very hot and I did not get nutrition right – although I'd tried them before the gels settled badly in my stomach. Although I did not have to stop it got to the stage where running made it feel worse.

Lessons learned – lose some weight and get in more training and more long runs before I try another one.

What was that?

Oh yes, I do want to do another one, but get fitter first, so not taking so long over it - time on feet was knackering!