London Marathon

Once every year, 35 - 40,000 hardened souls make their way to Blackheath Green in South East London at the start of a 26 1/4 mile adventure. Some will have completed it many times while for others it is a trip into the unknown. Nearly as many people volunteer to help out, at the registration and exhibition beforehand or at the event itself, handing out water around the course, providing marshalling and first aid services or in my case making sure the runners' bags that were left at the start are returned to their rightful owners.

The event is massive and hugely well organised, being part of it is greatly rewarding and a huge privilege  especially having run it some years ago. It meant an early start this morning to catch the coach, dropping off the club members who were running at Blackheath before making our way to the Mall. That gave us time for breakfast at a certain well known sandwich outlet, overlooking a sun drenched Trafalgar Square before making our way through security, heightened this year for obvious reasons, to our station for the day.

It really is a beautiful space early in the morning on a sunny day

Soon to be turned into a hotel

 The calm before the storm

Approximately 30,000 kit bags

 But what a beautiful day

Blessed by royalty - he's quite a character

The agony....

... and the ecstasy 

or maybe the sublime and ridiculous - must have chafed!

and some inspiring characters!

The crowds afterwards were amazing - lots of very pleased runners and over-attentive family and friends. Thousands running for charity - hope the money is used wisely

So after a long day, there were thousands of very happy runners and a hugely successful event. 

The effort needed to train properly to run a marathon takes many months of hard work and dedication - a little like restoring a Potter back to good condition. This week I am hoping to work on the centreboard to try and avoid having to replace it and make the cross brace to glass into the hull. I'm hoping to buy the marine ply today so I'll report on how good the Travis Perkins supplied product looks to be.