Yesterday started quite early as I was staying with my brother-in-law just north of London. A 05:55 alarm call was required for me to be able to prepare and eat my requisite large bowl of porridge before catching the 06:52 train down to King’s Cross. From there I joined the hordes of runners making their way down to London Bridge for the train down to the Blue start point in Greenwich Park. I wasn’t due to start till 10:00 so this gave me plenty of time to take in some more pre-race nourishment, warm up and take in the atmosphere.
I was off with Blue Wave 6, crossing the start line at 10:03 along a surprisingly interesting route south of the river, through Greenwich, past the Cutty Sark, through Bermondsey & Rotherhithe and then hitting Tower Bridge at 12.5 miles. I was running surprisingly well (in contrast to a good few of my training runs) and still felt quite fresh as we wound around the Isle of Dogs, but then had a bit of a wobble in Mile 21, had to slow down a bit, found the last couple of miles really quite hard and finally crossed the finish line in 04:19.
This certainly wasn’t my fastest marathon, but was definitely the best experience. London is all about soaking up the atmosphere and the support is huge, which definitely helped me on over those last few miles. I had an amazing and quite emotional day, so many thanks to Harmeny AC for the club place for April 2020, then October 2020, and finally October 2021.
And at the end of this, all of your generous donations have helped me raise over £700 for Marie Curie Care (including GiftAid), so many thanks for that too.
It’s been a blast!!!
Jon Waters
