London Marathon
A crowd of us from Stubbington Green Runners joined the Portsmouth Joggers coach for the 2007 London Marathon.
The Stubby gang consisted of Di McEwen, Mark & Jaqui Dyer, Jane Butler, Neil Jarvis and Alan Sadler and Mary ??, Tracie Jarvis's Mum....which made up the Supporters Crew, and Kay Sadler, Tracie Jarvis, Shirley McKain (my Mum) and myself (Kathy McKain).....the excited runners of the Marathon (well, not so exited after seeing the weather forecast for the day!!).
Di came armed with her usual tea/coffee and biscuits, but we were a little disappointed that she hadn't made the effort to bring bacon and sausage sarnies.
She did point out that she needed cooking facilities for this, but we felt that she normally brings everything with her but the kitchen sink, so what difference would an extra grill or cooker in her bag make, and trust me, her bag is big enough to fit all these thing in!!!
It was an early start, we met the coach at 05:15 in Fareham and set off in high spirits, if not a little nervous. We arrived on Blackheath at about 08:15, with plenty of time to spare for the 09:45 start (or so we thought!)
Kay Sadler and hubby Alan went over to the Red Start and Tracie, Shirley and myself started on the blue. My Mum Shirley did have a green number, but sneaked into the blue start as we were running together. After putting our bags on the lorries (and realising we had left a number of things in there like imodium, hats and the all important sun cream!), we made our way over to the queue for the toilets.
We got in the queue for the loo in good time....but still had to race over to the start line with seconds to spare. The weather was extremely hot, but the support from the crowd and our own 'Supporters club' was fantastic and carried us through to that all important finish line.
What a day and what an achievement for us all. Talking about the wonderful day on the coach on the way back....we all agreed that we are NEVER doing a marathon again. A few days before Tracie had mentioned that she wanted to do the Dublin Marathon in October and the Paris next Spring.
I reminded her of this after the race and I really can't repeat her answer but somewhere in the obscenities I guessed it was a NO! Its strange though because my phone went off the morning after the race and it was Tracie talking about our next marathon....funny that eh???!!!
We all had great runs (despite the weather) and I just want to say a special well done to Tracie and Kay and to tell them I am really proud of them both. Also to my lovely Mum Shirley who at 71 years old is still running so brilliantly. And of course to the 'Supporters Crew' who were great.