I will start this blog post with one of my favourite quotes describing the Virgin London Marathon by a sports reporter called Tom Clark, in the 1990’s.

“Centre Court spectators at Wimbledon cannot be on the court with Sampras and Becker; the football fans at Wembly cannot tread the turf alongside the players in the Cup Final; but more than 30,000 people of all shapes and sizes can tread in the footsteps of world class runners who are vying for a place in the Olympics. And then they can go home to office, club or pub and say to those who only watched on television: ‘I was there, I took part’.”

At major marathons the majority of runners only see ‘world class runners’ at the start line. By the time they cross the finish line the Paula Radcliffe’s of this world have already been in the shower and had their afternoon nap. Maybe some of you have had the same dream as me- you are running a marathon and somehow run out of your skin and catch the winner with 400 meters to go?

Well it actually happened in the Des Moines Marathon in America last weekend. Race leader Simon Sawe was entering the final ¼ mile with a lead of 10 seconds when he noticed the finish line was blocked off by a “Very Long train!”

The rail road he needed to cross was being occupied by an unannounced cargo train that held up the athletes who could do nothing but, stand and wait. As soon as the long train passed the marathon turned into a 400m sprint to the finish!

Luckily the race leader had enough left to out sprint his rivals who had caught him to win the race.

Bolt blows a Gayle!

Is there anything Usain Bolt cannot do? The mighty Bolt is obviously getting bored with beating the world’s best sprinters ‘week in week out’ so he has decided to beat the world’s best Cricketers instead! Usain Bolt bowled out West Indies Cricket Captain Chris Gayle in a celebrity match in Jamaica. When will he decide to take on Olympic Swimming legend Michael Phelps? Maybe they should compete over a Triathlon to make it fair?

In my last blog (see below) it was insinuated that I had a secret love child with a fan named 'Julie'. My lawyers have advised me to make the following statement

"I have not met this fan Julie and I did not have sexual relations with that women! Despite receiving a photograph of the child (below) my lawyers are waiting for DNA tests to confirm it is not mine!"

Tags: train stops marathon, Tom Clark quote, london marathon quote, bolt blows a gayle, bolt plays cricket

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