The London Marathon
Watching the London Marathon was at once inspirational and frightening. The reality of what your body goes through was striking, as was the obvious difference between the people that were well prepared and those who really, really weren’t…
Our first stop was between Miles Eleven and Twelve, at Bermondsey. Torrential rain notwithstanding most people were looking fairly chipper. There were a few good costumes, a few bad ones and some crazy folk who'd chosen not only to run more than 26 miles but to do so pretty much in the nude.
Freshness left us at our next stop: Mile Twenty-Four. This was marathon running laid bare. Probably one of the most gruesome points you can stand at. Sodden, tired, bloody: the runners were really feeling it. Attendants handed out Vaseline and Lucozade, dignity didn't play a massive role.
Gordon Ramsay sailed by looking fresh as a daisy. He was running the marathon for an impressive ninth-straight time. We also spotted Castaway has-been and Atlantic rower Ben Fogle, a giant Cornish pasty and a group of six Maasai warriors from a village in northern Tanzania, who were running in jangley flip flops.
Kenyan-speedster Martin Lel set a new course record this year, completing the course in a staggering 2 hours, 5 mins and 16 seconds and chalking up a pace that's waaaay under a five minute mile.
My friends completed in times ranging from 3 hours and 42 minutes to 5 hours and 7 minutes. WELL DONE EVERYONE.
Inspired I ran just over four miles in the evening: around Battersea Park and along the river a little bit.
Fact: London's marathon course is the only one in the world to take in both the east and west hemispheres, crossing the Prime Meridian in Greenwich.
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