Drove up on Saturday with my clubmate Flip
Great drive through Glencoe and we made it to Fort William without going the wrong way 
Met up with fellow fetchies in the pub and it was great to see some familiar faces and to meet Santa and RuthB2. Then off to various hotels and met up again for a meal and met lots more new Fetchies.
I didn't sleep well Saturday night and I hadn't done on Friday either, but that was the same at FLM so I didn't worry too much. Made my way to the start, it was still cloudy, so I didn't think of suncream or a hat. Pre race briefing, met even more Fetchies, group photo of all the Fetchies runners and then started.
As soon as the we started the clouds parted and the sun started to beat down.
I started fairly fast, slowed a little, but I was still averaging 8min 45s in the first half roughly.
This went great for a while, got to half way in 1hr 53m, way ahead of schedule, I could do the second half 14m slower ! Here are the first 13m
8min 28sec(1m)
8min 28sec(2m)
8min 36sec(3m)
8min 20sec(4m)
8min 40sec(5m)
8min 38sec(6m)
8min 41sec(7m)
8min 47sec(8m)
8min 42sec(9m)
8min 48sec(10m)
8min 49sec(11m)
8min 45sec(12m)
8min 43sec(13m)
Got to 20m in 2hr 57m which meant I could do 10m/miles and still get under 4 hours,
8min 43sec(13m)
8min 43sec(14m)
8min 51sec(15m)
8min 55sec(16m)
9min 14sec(17m)
9min 24sec(18m)
9min 30sec(19m)
10min 03sec(20m)
but then the wheels came off big time. Bad cramp in both legs, thighs and calves. Stopped to stretch and jogged on but it came on again and I decided that I didn't want to aggravate anything so I walked the last five miles or so, cheering on everyone who passed me.
10min 03sec(20m)
12min 17sec(21m)
14min 11sec(22m)
15min 18sec(23m)
14min 23sec(24m)
15min 05sec(25m)
14min 52sec(26m)
2min 44sec(finish)
4h 26m 8s
Basically, I think I went out too fast, I should have done 9m miles and stuck with that. Even that would have been a step up from the average at London of 9m 17sec. I could not maintain the firest half pace and I was starting to slow by 16m, but I may still have got under 4hr if it hadn't been for the cramps, I will have to think about what caused these - I had had four gels by this point and had drunk water at each station. This could have come from doing the FLM two weeks ago or maybe the heat, it was sunny all the time we were running and I was very red after the race.
Fantastic support from Santa, Loon, Haggis and OM and family on the course - thanks ! Going to mention three Fetchie runners in particular: Great performance by Souxsie, great pacing by Debstir and great courage by SparkyMarc in finishing after injury.
A final Fetchie meal and drinks took place on Sunday evening, but I was the first to leave as I was very tired.
A great weekend 
Friday night - didn't sleep well at all. People say that the penultimate night is the one that matter so this was not a good omen 😒.
Saturday morning. Woke in plenty of time to get to a club mates house and they drove me to the Durham services which was the pick up point for the coach organised by Blyth Running Club. They had been great in letting me joining them at short notice. Coach arrived early and we set off ahead of schedule. All went smoothly until we reached the bottom end of the M1 when we hit some roadworks and progress was slow. You could see a few people getting anxious about getting to Excel by 5.00 to pick up the numbers. Finally got to the hotel in Victoria about 3.45 ! Left the luggage without booking in and jumped on tube (which was busy with the Victoria Line closed). Got to Excel by about 4.20 and picked up number with no problem. Wandered round Excel for a while and at the station on the way back met Hoaxster. Had a good talk as we headed back into London on the train. I admire him running in the Sonic outfit, very tough.
Found the restaurant and met up with about twenty other Fetchies, only one of whom I had met before. I was bit nervous at first, but everybody was very friendly and I had good chats with Max and Old Mum. Thanks to Max for organising this 😁
Got back to the hotel, but again I didn't sleep too well. Woke at three and sort of dozed from then on. Not great, two bad nights ! Met Mic and Phil who were staying at same hotel at breakfast. After breakfast, coach to the start and that all went well - I'm glad I didn't have to get there by train. The start area was more spacious that the GNR and I met up with Vindicator, Homer, Icklechick, Helenn, nochickenstrip and Northernslowcoach in the sunny weather.
The start pens were low barriers and it would have been easy to jump over them and some people did. I thought it would be more like the GNR where they are now very tight on the pens and the pen barriers are very high. I was in pen 4 which felt fairly near the front. In the pen ScoobyDave came up and introduced himself and he very helpfully gave me lost of information on the start and the first few miles.
The race plan. Well to be honest I didn't really have one. I had overtrained for this (two half marathons last weekend) and I didn't know I was going to do it until ten days ago, so I thought I would just see how it went and how I felt. Optimistically I set up Bob, my virtual partner, to finish in just under 4hr, but I would be happy to finish in anything under 4h 30m
Got to the start line in just over two and half minutes. First mile was a bit stop start 9m 58s but I wasn't worried about that. Second mile was 9m 7s, fine and I felt fine, so I thought I would carry on with that. Heavyweight came by and introduced himself somewhere in the second mile. It was pretty crowded at this point and I took the decision to just keep to the speed of most people around me and not to try and weave round them. About 3m or so there seemed to be more space and my pace increased to under 9min/miles.
I had decided to break the race up into sections: Cutty Sark, Tower Bridge, Fetchpoint, Canary Wharf, 20m point, Fetchpoint, finish. Got to Cutty Sark feeling fine. It got a bit more crowded again and my speed went over 9min/miles for that mile. Highland Lad came by introduced himself and went on. As we headed towards Tower Bridge, the weather changed from sunny and cool to very dark, a little cold and it started to throw it down.
The crowds had been encouraging from the start. People had told me to put my name on the front of my vest and I thought that I might get a few people calling out my name. I was very surprised that lots and lots of people were doing it - well I guess there might have been one or two Dave's in the race, but even allowing for that, the personal support was something I had never experienced before and it definitely helped !! 😁
Got to Tower Bridge in the heavy rain and looked out for Stoxy who said she would be here. Amazingly, amongst all the faces, I spotted her and it was great to see her smiling face ! 😀
Next target was Fetchpoint at 13m and I made sure I was on the left side of the road so I could see them. I was expecting a few cheers, but nothing much more. As I approached I saw many more fetchies than I had expected and I started to wave. Being in a fetch top, they could easily spot me and the noise level and the whistles started to rise to an amazing, staggering level. It felt fantastic and I felt an incredible wave of emotion come over me. I couldn't believe I was actually close to tears.
I just rode that wave for the next few miles as we turned away from the runners coming back and headed down to the Isle of Dogs. At this stage, they narrowed the route so that it became very crowded again and my time slowed to over 9min/miles again. Phal and Trumpton past me at this point and we had a quick chat.
The Canary Wharf area was very crowded. People offering jelly babies, biscuits etc and shouting my name. I felt pretty good here, but my times show that miles 19 and 20 were my worst - 10m 17 sec for mile 19 ! 😟 Contro who was leading the 9min/mile pace group went by and I could see my chance of sub-4 disappearing
I got to 20m and said to myself, okay the race starts here. I took my buff off my wrist and put it on as a sweat band to try and focus. My track record after 20m is not good. At Windermere, my previous marathon, I had really slowed down after 21m. Three weeks ago I had run out of energy at 18m on a 23m training run. I knew I needed some mental strength at this point, I was determined to try and do the last section maintaining a steady pace of no more than 10min/miles.
Got to Fetchpoint and high fived loads of them. I didn't stop as I felt that if I did I would find it very hard to get going again. I had used a 5 gel and water every 2m or so strategy and that worked fine. I did take a couple of jelly babies at 20m (hope they were vege ones !) and a lucozade sport at 23m.
Kept ticking off the miles. 3 miles to go, 2 miles to go. I was able to keep a steady pace of under 10min/miles to the finish and just before I reached 26m point, Bob beeped to say that he had finished. I was a bit surprised I was so close behind him. I went under the 365 yards to go bridge and turned into the finish feeling pretty good. Crossing the line, I felt very pleased that I had beaten the 20m jinx and my time of 4h 2min 11 sec was about 11m better than Windermere last year. Very pleased !!! 😁
The finish system was very efficient, but as I went through it, the rain came down very heavily again. I would have like to sat down for a bit and get changed. It was a miserable end to the race. I got quite cold and it took quite a while to cross the race and get back to my hotel - my guess would be an hour. I was pretty shattered when I got back and had a lovely bath while texting loads of family and friends 😀 ! There was no way I could go to the post race Fetchie drinks, I was just too tired, so I ate my way though most of the goody bag and popped out for a sandwich.
Negatives: crowded course which made it difficult at times. Postives: Unbelieveable support, especially from the Fetchpoint - thanks to everybody involved you did a fantastic job and it was very moving 😁😁😁!
Will I be enter this race in future ? - I haven't made my mind up yet. Maybe once is enough, but I am tempted !
