I had a great weekend down in London for the marathon. My training had gone really well over the last 6 months although I had a minor injury scare in February with my hip but thankfully the physio sorted me out. I was confident of achieving my sub 2 40 target time but a little nervous about hitting the dreaded wall at the 20 mile mark or getting cramp.

I managed to get a championship entry based on my half marathon time so started right near the front with all the other club runners. I was only about 10 metres behind the start line and saw Mo Farah whizz close by in the warm up area.
The start went well and I soon got a nice clear run running in groups no more than 2 people wide. I knew I had to run 6.10 min Mile pace to go under 2 hours 40.
I ran a bit quicker than this for the first 5 miles and felt really comfortable so decided to continue at the quicker pace.
The noise from the crowds was incredible and I was surprised how comfortable I felt in the heat. Although I cooled off at every water station which helped.  The first 20 miles went by in no time and i felt great running every mile at sub 6 minute mile pace.
Miles 21 and 22 became a little uncomfortable and I felt my legs tiring for the first time but I was 2 minutes ahead of schedule so did some quick maths to figure out i could run the last 4 miles at 8 minute mile pace to achieve my target. DON’T BLOW UP NOW!
My legs then went heavy and I had to dig in and grit my teeth and pull some funny faces! Miles 23 to 25 were really hard and I could feel blisters on my feet but I managed to hang on in there and deliberately avoided looking at my watch as I felt I had slowed down a lot. After checking my watch with a mile to go I was relieved to find out my pace had dropped very little so I would beat my target time.
The last mile was agony and with 400m to go my legs went but by then I knew I was home. I hobbled over the line in 2.38.09.