Jo and I traveled to the Peak district early on Friday morning leaving at 7 am, so that we could go for a walk on Friday before running the marathon on Saturday, then traveling back home on Saturday so I could work on Sunday and Jo could do some work on her master's project which is due in at the end of May.
Jo and I on our walk
The morning of the run normally very happy to wake at 7 am with the sun shinning but when running a marathon it is slightly worrying, it was going to be a very hot run.
Taken before the marathon, it was a stile that we thought we would have to get over at 26 miles but luckily they had opened a gate by the side of the stile (that is normally locked) which was much appreciated.
The high peak trail which was the trail we ran the second half of the marathon on. The first half was run on the tisington trail
This was the bridge that we turned right at to go over the stile or as it happened through the gate
The only picture taken of the actual ran. forgot camera and Jo's phone had little to no charge, and it was also my Dad's birthday so we had to make sure we had enough charge to text him a Happy Birthday. You can see my knee has a support on it. About one week before the run I went for a run and after 3 miles my knee swelled up and I had to stop running. So I had been taken lots of anti swelling tablets and using gels all week but I was still unsure if I would be able to complete the run, but I had to run as not running would put completing my A-Z in 2017 in danger.
As I have mentioned in previous posts Jo is amazing and is the most amazing person in the world. Due to my Knee problem she said she would run with me, she is running much better than me and would be about 20 minutes or so quicker than me which translates to nearly 1 minute a mile over the 26 miles. I can not say how much I appreciated Jo running with me. It made the run so much more enjoyable and it really feels a privilege to be able run 26 miles with some one you love.
It was funny at the end as Jo was slightly ahead and got to the right hand turn by the bridge in the photo above and stopped to wait for me, but there were supports there shouting her to go on only 200 meters to go, I could see her saying she was waiting for me but they were saying he is OK forget about him, so she had to run to the finish. It was not until later that we looked at the results and Jo finished in 3 hours 59 mins and 56 seconds, while I finished in 4 hours and 11 seconds. I was just chuffed to finish as one week earlier I really thought I would not be running at all.
So W completed, J - Jersey next in October
