Hurrah! After three months of sacrificing my social life, overeating, running in the snow/rain/cold, running up hills, running down hills, cycling, glute work, hamstring stretching, pilates sessions and a very pitiful attempt at carbloading the big day finally came around on Sunday 17th April. The day I had been both dreading and looking forward to for months. From about Saturday afternoon everything began to take on a ritualistic ‘last rites’ type feel, brushing my teeth, laying out my running clothes, checking my ipod holder, my energy gels, a last dash to Runners Need to buy a SIS marathon gel belt, do I take a water bottle? No shan’t bother.  Family came round to feed me pasta, boyfriend came round and drank beer, still not asleep by midnight as my mind started to race.

One friend helpfully told me ‘it’s only a few hours of your life Holly, just get on with it’ – I kept repeating this mantra whilst trying to get to sleep and eventually drifted off.  Getting up, struggled down half a piece of toast, on the bus with drunken people coming home from their nights out, and suddenly I was in Greenwich! I felt strangely calm the hour before, and decided I wasn’t goign to start in my Pen 8 which was too far back but muscled in somewhere around Pen 6-7.

All going well until I needed the loo at Mile 2! Wasted 5 minutes queuing for a portaloo. Headed onto Mile 11 where my friends were waiting for me, gave me such a boost to see them all shouting and waving from the crowds. I couldn’t quite believe I was running in the London Marathon!

Seeing my friends at Mile 11

On to Mile 13 and my family were all shouting and waving with the rest of the Shelter supporters, that spurred me on a few more miles, until I reached the dreaded Isle of Dogs, the worst part of the route, it got boring, long and around Mile 17 my legs started seizing up. I had to stop and try and stretch out my hips and quads, my friends at Mile 18 were screaming and shouting and waving, I hadn’t realised they’d be there so it was amazing to see them.

Flagging at Mile 18!

Miles 18-20 were tough, my legs were so heavy I felt they were made of lead, but once I got past mile 20 all I could think was ‘I’ve never run this far in my life and only 6 miles to go!’ hugging my family at Mile 22 on Tower Hill was the last surge of energy needed to see me through the last 4 miles and as I turned off Birdcage Walk I started to speed up for the final 1200 meters before sprinting the final 600  meters as fast as I could!  Some kind of energy flooded over me and I raced across the finish line feeling on top of the world.

Friends and family were waiting at the end, I couldn’t have made it through without their support. The whole way round I kept thinking of all the sponsorship I’d raised and how important the work Shelter does is, after running the hideous 26.2 miles at least I could go off to the pub before going home to my lovely flat and nice warm bed and wonderful flatmates. So many people don’t have a home or are in danger of losing their homes and I was acutely aware of this the whole way round the marathon.

With my family at the finish

With my medal!

Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me, joined me at Croquet Easts’s Sports Day fundraiser, supported me, listened to me, everyone at the clinic who has given me hours of their time in physio and massage, Ashleigh and Alona for their Pilates sessions and all my friends and family who turned up on the day to spur me on!

It’s still possible to sponsor me so any spare change will go a long way to helping Shelter. www.justgiving.com/hollylondonmarathon

Oh and I ran it in 4 hours 26 minutes……can definitely do better next time