So I spent £65 on the official photos and these are the good photos....
Pre-race smiles with Craig. It was cold and it rained as we walked from the train station. Not ideal. The theory is to keep warm and strip off at the last minute. This means that you discard your clothing at the start. Hence, the day before the race I raided my wardrobe for some disposable clothing. Travelling to the biggest physical challenge of my life. Dressed like a scarecrow. Brilliant.
About to go in the pens at the start. It took me 10mins 15secs to get across the line as I was back in pen seven of nine at the blue start. (Red and Green starts elsewhere)
Smiley. Grinning inanely til about mile 13.
As you cross Tower Bridge at the halfway point, to the left you can see Big Ben and from there the finish line is only a mile. You can almost smell it. But the course turns right instead and you are now running away from the finish, very aware of the remaining 13 miles.
To make it worse, the road is two way at that point and you can see the runners who are 8 miles ahead of you on the other side of the road.
That's when the smile faded.
PS Skydive Rule No.1: Always know where the camera is.
Smile has faded.
The race started at 10:10. I crossed the start line at 10:20. I'll leave it to you to work out how long I've been running at this point.
I can see the end and I've started running 'properly' again. i.e. both feet off the floor. Photographer got lucky...
Relief.
Relief. Close up. Damn my feet hurt after 4hrs 53mins 49secs. Plus the time standing waiting and then shuffling forward at the start. And now it's another 0.5 miles to get out of the finish enclosure...
They say each foot hits the ground 20,000 times during a marathon. My soles are suitably bruised.
No other pain though. Winning!
Super smiley and proud of myself. Yeah, check out the bling! It's so big 'n heavy that I nearly fell over when they put that round my neck.
Stupid heavy medal. Stupid heavy bag of my stuff. Stupid heavy bag of freebies. Not sure how I'm standing up still. They must be balancing each other out.
Grimace for the camera. Holding onto the homeless man for support... thanks Craig.
