April 17th - London Marathon

Dan Butler
Chris Ford

And this one Dan!

Been a mad 2 weeks, Eased right off the training and got a chest infection. Left it a while but ended up going to doctors on tuesday was put on anti-biotics given ventelin and sent for an chest X- Ray ASAP, not your ideal last few days, but the Xray showed up nowt to worry about and the antibiotics seems to have shifted most of the chest infection. Phew!!

It was cloudy to start with, which was great as not run in the sun since about september.
Me and a mate Chris Ford were in Blue pen 3. We were optimistically aiming for 8 minute miles and under 3:30. It's the first marathon I've done and his 2nd one. I was overwhelmed by the crowds and the first few miles just floated by. When the Red start merged with the blue start we bumped into our training partner Steve Lawson who had started from red pen 3. At about mile 5 overtook Ewan Thomas. All was looking good at halfway (1:44) so just ahead of our pace. I missed my Family who where around that mark somewhere but I know the kids had a ball. The sun was shining through now and it felt hot . I got to 16 still feeling good and had dropped chris and steve, I stopped for a quick pee at 18 and could tell I'd overcooked it. I went through 20 at 2:42 and still thought a sub 3:30 was on the cards, but the wheels well and truelly fell off. By 21 Chris came past me, I tried to stay with him but had adopted the get me home shuffle which is slow. I saw my brother at 23 miles which gave me a massive boost for about 40 yards ! Going though the the muscular dystropy part at mile 25 was great and I looked in vain for family agan, but still didn't see them. The last 800 metres was hell, it felt like an age til the 600 metres sign and then 400 then 385 yards, all it could think of was Get me out of here !!

I went over the finish line in 3:48:14 and was 6707 out of nearly 35000 and well chuffed.
Chris Ford did 3:40:55 and Steve Lawson did 3:49:38

Would I do it again, yes !!

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What a day!!!
Early start up to black heath, my mate alan was in the red start, i was Blue start pen 4, can believe i didnt see you Dan,
Never ran more than 13.1 miles EVER , so thought i would play safe and run 10 min miles and go for a 4.20.00!
The first 13 miles flew by and my face was ache n more than my legs from all the sights and sounds around rotherhithe and jamacia road!!
Saw the family just north of the river and then on to isle of dogs.
Then at mile 16 the legs said "what the f**k are you doing!! " yes it was time for the wall, which some B*****D had moved, cos i was told to
look out for it at 18 to 20!!! the lack of long runs was taking its toll [poor prep]
The next ten miles were hell, but i managed to stay under my 10 min mile pace!
Finished in 4.13.50, well pleased with that,
2.01.00 half way!
Now back to the serious stuff!!
See you soon
Pete Chard

Well done Chardy - what an excellent effort on no training...