hours, having done my first, 2002, in 4:20. I was on a delayed train from Charing Cross, so I didn't get to the red start until bang on 9.45am. I then realised I needed the toilet, so left the start and ran to a Portaloo. I didn't expect to be sitting

up the marathon running shoes. I’ll really miss it, and am in floods of tears watching the video, but enough is enough. Time to help son number two train as he is now convinced he wants to do it next year - we'll see.Well done everyone and good luck

patches. Meeting up before, during and after the race all added to the party atmosphere.I was badly affected by cramp from miles 20 to 23, probably not helped by my injury-restricted training over the last 8 weeks. At one point I stopped to stretch against

ran on the day, especially with my pacing up to about 23 miles. The reason the physical shutters came down after that, I believe, was simply not enough miles in training. The balancing act of keeping injury-free and been fully trained for a quick

was suffering from sun stroke, so in retrospect not too bad at all. HodProd, 4:08 It was my first FLM since '99, and how I've missed the atmosphere and anticipation of the great event. Really looked forward to the race and trained well, recovered well, ate

at the start to not need to wear a bin liner. At halfway, a fellow runner points out that one of my shoelaces is undone. Seeing other runners after the finish, hobbling around like I was.Do differently: Trained a lot harder like previous years. Running only a

. He looked gutted.The most memorable moment was seeing my football hero Tony Cottee struggling out of Docklands and, as a fellow runner for the Bobby Moore Fund, giving him a "gee-up."For future events, I will train properly rather than doing one run a

the winter clothes I had run in all through my training, and not have to panic about running the marathon in brand-new (and therefore likely to be highly chaffing) shorts and vest! Oh, and a gold star goes to the masseuse at the SPARKS hospitality event. She

, and the last four miles were an amazing finish to a great event. Coventry Cat, 4:22What an amazing day!I woke very early, way before my 6am wake-up call, opened the curtains at my hotel to see the clearest of blue skies. I stuffed breakfast down before greasing

-prepared, having trained for six weeks. I used the Runner’s World emergency schedules which were excellent. But work pressures and a nasty cold cut into this last-minute attempt at training. I feared for my life as I stood at the back of pen nine at Blackheath! I