to sunshine - cold but sunshine! My fundraising target is sitting at over £2,000 with Gift Aid - so hopefully each charity will get £1,000. I orginally set out to just raise £250 each, so I'm so grateful to everyone who has donated.  I set out to follow

morning, I should have been confident with both the total mileage I had put in and the quality of some of the sessions. I was aiming to get round in 3:30. This may seem optimistic for a first timer, but my best half-marathon time is 1:30 and my slowest

washing machine and a War Horse puppet as the gun went to start the London Marathon.  The first impression was of slight anti-climax.  I’d been building towards this moment for the last nine weeks (I was a late and surprised substitute for an injured

of 4:30. I was using my Garmin to pace myself and that had me bang on 2:15 at the halfway mark although the official half marathon split was 2:16.58. I did start to tire a little around the halfway point and I think may have taken a sneaky little walk

between miles 13-14, as the race doubled back along the other side of the road too. The faster runners were running back past mile 22 and I swear I ran this section with an adrenaline rush. I barely noticed the half way sign.The next three miles were

with the same time as me I would have been about 10,450th. That means I overtook about 10,000 people. I can’t help but feel I could have done a lot better if I wasn’t stuck behind the crowds of people, if I’d had a clear run. It was a lot of effort and it felt

running for cover but by the time we were being told to enter our start pens it had cleared up and our expectation levels continued to rise.After six months of fundraising and training, it was finally time. 35,000-plus runners set off for the 30th London