A Very Nervous beginner who needs support to complete the VLM by FluffyP

I plotted a route on the marathon site for my last 20 mile training run on Friday due to a typo I wrote Great Notley Raining Run. How right I was, woke up to sunshine but by 9.45 when we started it was hacking it down.

Anyway we set off with a view to 20 miles and on this run we encountered :

sun (too hot)

rain (too wet)

hail (too bloody painful)

doberman (too off his lead)

diversions due to mud

some of the biggest hills in Essex (the marathon site doesn't show gradients and I didn't think to check d'oh!!!),

my friend was  carrying an injury and her physio had told her to stop if she had any pain, we set off at a decent pace and I checked my nike+ for the first time thinking we would be 2 miles and we were 4 so was quite happy with that - then came the hills, I forgot Godlings Way was about a 30 degree gradient and my friend was giving me some "what were you thinking?" looks but we carried on and at 10 miles were feeling fatigued but trotting along quite nicely. Then came more hills, I had slowed doen to a shuffle by this point and was running out of water so was struggling a bit and we stopped off at the discovery centre (a local nature reserve) for some water and lucozade sport, this did the trick and I had noticed that I had taken about 5 mins of my half marathon time (good but too quick really in retrospect).

What we really didn't need was a sprint as a doberman came running out of someones yard, I have never been a massive dog lover but the more I run the more I get annoyed with people who leave dogs off of leads, the beast nearly knocked my friend over and as it's owner shouted for it we sprinted off. It did provide an adrenalin rush but it was energy we really didn't need to use. Worse was to come as we approached mile 15 - hail stones, we were going up a very mild incline but the wind was right in our faces and so were these little ice bombs, it was also at this point that my friends knee started to play her up and we decided that we would get home and call it a day.

Gutted that we didn't do 20 miles but we did do 16.5 in 2hrs 54min so was quicker than my marathon pace and I would hope that April 25th will not bring those weather conditions and there will not be as many hills so I am looking on the brightside and staying positive, I am wondering weather to try for 20 miles at the weekend but I think I may do more harm than good with the marathon 15 days away at that point, what does anyone else think?