And so to bed...!

Well what can I say? I had a wonderful day at the Brighton Marathon. I exceeded my expectations of my finish time, coming in at 4hr, 43 mins and 51 seconds exactly. The weather was great, the spectators and supporters were tremendous and I enjoyed the vast majority of the race. I was feeling great until the last 3 miles when it suddenly felt very hard.

I was buoyed up by seeing the ladies from my running club who were organising the water station at mile 24. Apparently they had chalked all the names of club members who were running on the course, along with good luck wishes, but it got washed away by all the water! This is one of the reasons I run - the great sense of community it brings.

On that note, many of those running were very sad to hear afterwards of the death of a young man of 23 who collapsed about halfway round the course. I know these things happen at longer races but my thoughts are with his family.

Thanks to all my Blip friends for your good wishes yesterday and for following me via the mobile phone app. I could feel all that virtual support as I was going round - every time I passed over one of the pads recording the times I was imagining all the people following me and thinking - keep going, don't let them down!

I'm now very tired and a bit sore so after lots of food and drink I'm planning an early night. I'll get back to commenting on everyone else's blips tomorrow when I have a longer attention span!