How far?

26 miles and a few yards actually, yes, as alluded to during March, No 2 son was running the London Marathon, so SWMBO and I went down to the smoke to support him.

We went down the Saturday afternoon and caught up with some old rugby friends before a reasonably early night in Lensbury. It was under refurbishment so a bit disappointing that we had not been told, but hopefully it will be finished when we next go down and stay. 

Never mind that, we were off bright and early  on the Sunday to hopefully catch up with him three or four times during the race. It all started so well with parking purchased near Gunnersbury station and a short 30 minute tube ride to Westminster. As it turned out this was my only chance to sit down all day!!

A couple of stops later we were at the 8 mile mark and managed to catch him there but hen our plans all went out of the window, stations were closed due to volume of people, there were extensive queue's and standing only on rush hour packed tubes and DLR trains,

So, we were lucky to catch him again after about 17miles and then headed to the finish to meet up with him. What a joke that was as everybody was piling off at St James to meet up near Pall Mall, only to find there was no way of crossing the track into the park. Big logistical error by the marathon organisation team as it took an hour to walk around the park up to Piccadilly and back to Pall Mall, only to then get bounced from the building he was supposedly meeting us in.

Anyway all ended well as we met up, he showed off his medal and did a respectable time of just under 4 hours. Longer than his target but it was very hot and most people were below their PB when they finished

.

All except the elite winners that is who broke the World record.

The escape from London worked well though as from Gunnersbury we were on the motorway home in 5 minutes and another adventure got ticked off.