I'm finished

So yesterday I ran a marathon. Bloody hell! Just looked at my official time which is 5.48:04. I stopped to have a couple of photos taken by friends around the course, so I could have broken the 5.48 barrier I so wanted, I know I could...

I'm one up on supposed world-class athlete Haile Gebrselassie who pulled out at 19 miles with a stitch. He probably hasn't been training properly and has been watching The Apprentice on his sofa when he should have been pounding the streets. When will these amateurs ever learn?

It was an amazing day and I started quite well. I was running a very consistent time all the way to 15 miles then all of a sudden my hamstring felt very bad. I pulled up on the side of the road and as luck would have it the St John's Ambulance had a station about 300 yards up, so they gave me a quick massage and I was on my way again. All going well again until about 18 miles when it went again along with the back of my knee. St John's were about 10 metres ahead of me at this point so another massage later, I was off. This time it wasn't quite so easy to run off and for the next five or six miles I ran about 3/4 of the mile until my thigh began to seize up and then walked to the next mile marker and started again. At around 24 miles I started running and didn't stop (photos aside!) until the finish.

It's great to be able to say that I have run the Marathon, although in truth I feel with more leg work, I can go a lot quicker and run the whole thing in one. I'm a bit worried that may nag at me until I have no option but to do it again. We'll see...