What a day!! - gorgeous, sunny day -truly glorious.
I finished in 3:38:42 which was a lot faster than I had thought I would a few days ago. I started slower but nicely paced but flagged a bit mid way through but that's common for me. I felt rested overall though.
I met some really cool people this time out - people that share the road with you for a few kms, people that ask to run with you or people you ask to run with. You pair up, talk or not, and then wish each other well and split up for the next patch of road.
For example, I ran with a police officer with PTSD and he was running for a brother lost to mental illness. We talked a lot about PTSD - and about the good things that recovery brings. We split at about 11k.
Then I met a woman who lost her mother to suicide and she was running to show herself what it was like not to give up...
The stories... bring me to tears but you can't think of sad things when running so while some of the stories were sad, we focussed on the calm we felt on hearing each footstep hit the pavement. And how grateful we were to be here to hear it.
Thank you all for your words of support.
I have a last season marathon in October and am looking forward to that now too.
Going for an ice bath and a strong coffee!!
