How hard can it be!?: Edinburgh Marathon... Done! (Time = 4:13:31)

Sunday 22 May 2011

Edinburgh Marathon... Done! (Time = 4:13:31)

Well it's done! Without doubt the toughest physical challenge I've ever done in my life!
Karen and I met up with Chris and Karl from work at the start line (note the nervous smiles on the picture on the left) and then kicked off at just after 10.00am and relaxed into a fairly comfortable pace, averaging about 9.5 min miles.
A really nice course off Princess St in Edinburgh, around the beautiful Holyrood Park, around a football stadium dropping down towards the coast towards Musselborough. Past the race course (and finish line) and continued along the coast with Bass rock in sight in the distance. A fairly comfortable run until about 17miles when we were hit by a heavy downpour and

strong winds whilst running along the coast. Double backed at about 18miles around a country estate and a house where a guy was playing 'Charriots of fire' on his trumpet :-). The legs started to seize up at around 20 miles and tried to walk a little at a drinks station around 21 miles but the legs were too stiff to walk so it was easier to keep running!?
The last mile was brilliant (picture above right)... Even managed a smile!

We finished in a very respectable 4 hours 13 minutes and 31 seconds. 4924th out of a field of around 28,000 runners. So all in all a good result!
Even better is the fundraising total! Karen has raised just over £1,000. I've raised another circa £500... Every penny of which will make a huge difference to the vulnerable children supported by the Isaiah Trust.
Thank's so much for all the support!
Gonna have a well earned week off now before resuming training for my Triathlons later this year!
D :-)

Why am I doing this?!

I got drawn in to running in 2007 to raise funds for charity and discovered it's a great way to keep in shape! I expanded the fundraising to open water swimming last year and loved that too so this year I'm pushing the envelope and going the whole hog with a couple of triathlons!

I've kept a training blog for the past two years and found it a huge motivator to get out and do something to report on so here I am again!

I'll be keeping a record here of all my training ups and downs as well as a few deviations on my hobbies.

I'm planning a few events this year for my own benefit and two major events to raise funds again for two charities that mean a lot to me:

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution ~ http://www.rnli.org/

In September 2007 I had an accident whilst sailing my Laser Pico dinghy out at sea off Abersoch, North Wales. The Abersoch crew came to my aid and I'll be eternally grateful ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk6edftmHtg

I spend a lot of time out at sea with family and friends and it made me realise just how dependent we are on this life saving volunteer emergency service funded entirely by charity.

I ran the Great North Run Half Marathon to raise funds for the Abersoch RNLI station in 2008 & 2009 and continued last year with a one mile open water at The Great Salford Swim.

This year I'm rolling it all up and expanding the RNLI fund raising challenge by taking on the Tatton Triathlon Olympic Distance event on Sunday 11th September. It's a 1,500 mtr swim in open water followed by a 38km bike ride and then a 10km run!