That's the marathon done...

Some folk may laugh but in planning this trip certain dates had to be considered: Christmas (a complete no-no); children's birthdays (July & August); studies (failed on that one :-( ); a certain graduation ceremony and, the London  Marathon! All in all that left a window of just the right length meaning that today was spent shouting "jelly babies" at thousands of runners while drinking beer and getting sun-kissed (who ever remembers to put on sun cream in April in London?).

So Mo Farah's debut was only 2h 8m 21s. For goodness sakes, he's a (very good) 10,000 metre runner. The marathon is 42195 metres - four times as far! And he was 8th in a field which is almost certainly the strongest ever assembled at London. He says he will return and you can bet he'll go faster and have more race experience.

Anyway, slightly behind Mo were many other people doing their first, third, thirty third marathons (or 302nd in the case of one friend....). Each of them with their own targets, dreams, reasons, pain and joy. I was at a support point opposite Mudchute station with a bunch of friends. We cheered on the fast and the slow, the sleek, the rhinos, the visually impaired (I cannot imagine doing that), and of course the wombles. We handed out jelly babies, orange slices, banana chunks, cake and much more. It's wonderful how polite people are too! It was very warm but that didn't seem to stop a lot of friends producing personal best times. A fabulous day, as ever.

And now, I must pack.