Kendle's Marathon Challenge by Kendlef

oh my days, i am one tired little teddy!!!

lets go back a few days, friday...

had a mega meltdown, alexs leg got worse and it turned out that e couldnt come to london at all and spent all of saturday afternoon at hospital having it checked over :( was absolutly gutted and felt like i couldnt do it without him and didnt want to go anymore. luckily he talked me out of this and passed me te phone and told me to ring my mum.

and good old patty stepped into the breach and came along for the ride!!! very last minute for her and really appreciate that she dropped all of her plans for me.

so saturday morning and up at 4 and setting off for london at 5. got doris (the satnav) on the job and she did quite well - until we got to london.

rather than sending me the easy way, she decided it would be funny to send me through the middle of london - it was horrific and caused a lot of swearing at poor doris. ten we drove straight past the hotel, asked a man for directions who sent us on another tour of london, which caused much more swearing :) but eventually we got there and got parked up and ready fo rthe expo.

was still quite early so it wasnt too busy, didnt stay too long, just enough time to catch up with the cancer research people and have our photo taken with some strange green lizard lady. We then managed to get caught up with some geek convention on the way out and so had our picture taken with darth vader and some storm troopers :D

had a lovely day with a bit of shopping and a few cheeky pints - i know i know its naughty te day before a marathon!!! then it was a meal out - £14.95 for tomato basil pasta - DISGUSTING!!!! and ten me and mum went back to the room early and mum drank rose wine out of a mug whilst we watched crap tv.

Could not sleep at all, was up every hour and eventually gave up at 6 and got up to get ready. felt sick as a dog so no breakfast at all :( not a good start!! had to get to te start line on my own and was a bit worried about it, but as i left my hotel room i looked down the corridor and saw a guy leaving his room in a cancer research vest with blue number, so i collared him and told him i was going to follow him :)

took forever to get there and unfortunately had no time to meet up with fellow real buzzers, im sooo sorry, i really wanted to meet you all. So onto the race...

felt a little strange to be stood all on my own at the start but soon forgot all about that and off we went. started off a little too fast as i was far too excited but realised early on that i was going too fast and managed to pull it back.

nearly fell  over when a man tripped over the back of my shoe and then realised the guy was blind and felt really bad for bein in the way. but as alex pointed out maybe his guide should have been paying a bit more attention

desperately needed a wee at mile 4, but was not prepared to wait in the queue, so i carried on to mile 6, was really bursting by this point! waiting inthe queue for all of 10 seconds, before i got all impatient and leapt across the car park and into a bush to have a wee in full view of several weeing men, sorry if you guys are now having nightmares :) and then i was back into the race.

Feeling good and strong until about mile 10 and then i started to feel a bit weird, got lots more water down my neck and turned on my ipod. i didnt want to use it but took it with me just in case and boy am i glad i did. i got my usual running music on and turned it down low. i oculd still hear all the crowd and soak up the atmosphere but i had the comforting thud thud in the background to help my pace.

got to 13 miles and couldnt see my mum and friends - was gutted!!! but i had managed to do a half marathon in just over 2 and a half hours which is pretty good going for me! so just kept plodding on.

Really started to struggle at about mile 17ish and carried on walk/run/walk/running for a couple of miles and really slowed myself down. then i had what must have been the second wind and started to go for it again. took full advantage of the showers and lucozade and thought to myself that i wasnt going to let this beat me after all my hard work.

at mile 22 i passed my mum which meant a small stop for a cry and a big hug, which apparantly made the random woman behind my mum cry too :) i definatly could not give up now, i was sooooo close.

just after i managed to finally overtake great uncle bulgaria, there was no way i was letting a womble beat me. what a great costume - that poor guy must have been so hot.  was also overtaken by a helicopter and an old man dressed as a belly dancer - oh the shame of it!!!

really started to hurt from about mile 24 but i was determined not to walk those last couple of miles, so i plodded on and by this point had put the ipod away and took full advantage of the crowd shouting my name. and shouting te guy called big nose who was right next to me.

Oh my god that feeling when you round that last corner and you can see the finish line - its crazy - i started balling my eyes out and then realised the cameras were there and pulled it together for one final push to get me over that line.

Then my phone went nuts with messages of 'we've just seen you on the tv!!' unfortuantely i've been unable to watch it back and check for looking troutlike as it was on the red button and not on the normal marathon coverage. does anyone know if we can watch that back? iv looked on iplayer but cant find it!

took me 3 hours to get back to derbyshire once we'd got back to the hotel and then it was straight to the pub for a few bevvies :)

oh boy did i ache this morning and i have a horrendous collection of blisters (which i am trying to resist popping) so no recovery run, but i did manage a 40 minute walk to matlock followed by lunch and cake and ten an hour long walk with my friend jenny and my godson Rohan (4).

Rohan said i was very good and gave me a sticker for doing the marathon and then informed me that he is goin to do te marathon when he is 10, he says he needs to do it before he is 12 cos that's when he is going to go to work and won't ave any days off - Bless him!!

got a visit from my aunty and cousin tonigt complete with bottles of stella and a congratulations balloon - even more blubbing followed. so lasagne in the oven, donuts ready for consumption and stella in the fridge - woop!

will put my photos on tomorrow, too tired to do that now.

WELL DONE EVERYONE!!! its all over now.

Apologies for the super long post - got a little carried away

k xx