Race day

Sunday 19th May

Today has been quite a day. The blog has been building to this point from the start, and fortunately the plan came together. There was no guarantee that I would have beaten the cancer or even be able to make the start line when I booked the race, but here I am sat in bed absolutely knackered but very happy writing this.

There is so much to put in here but it is so late that this will probably not be the whole tale of the day before I fall asleep. It was certainly eventful ( thank you Mr Leathers! ) but worked out in the end.

The weather was almost perfect, although perhaps just a little hot ( not many times we can say that recently ). The race itself went perfectly to plan. We started with a group of six of us but this whittled down to just Kurt and I in the end. Kurt was invaluable today, without him it could have been very painful. He slowed me down when I was going too quick and just talked to me the whole way to keep me going, although the next time he quotes Shakespeare during a race he had better make sure the guy running next to us is not there. He launched into several minutes of explaining that Shakespeare did not write any plays followed by the facts proving that the Titanic is not the Titanic. Great party guest!!

We finished bang on planned time at 1 hour 55 minutes 12 seconds. A personal worst for me but there haven't been many as satisfying as this one. Di from our club was waiting for me on the finish line with a bouquet of flowers, followed by a crate of beer.

I was so tired I did have to find shade to sit in for a few minutes where I had to take on water and a banana before I could stand again. Whilst I was there I was interviewed by Heart FM which will go out on the breakfast programme tomorrow, although whether I made any sense I'm not sure.

Unfortunately Richard then produced his party piece and had a bit of a collapse after finishing and as I was one of the last remaining Evesham runners there I had to wait while they sorted him out in the back of an ambulance and then drive him home in his car. He promptly fainted again in the car after only about a mile but came round in only about 30 seconds and fortunately picked up from there onwards. He was fine when I saw him later in the afternoon but he didn't half scare me.

We finished the day with a BBQ with friends which was great.

I struggle to find the words to say how grateful I am to everyone for their support. It makes me feel very humble.

Mandy will finish off her thoughts tomorrow night and then I will finish the blog completely on Tuesday.

Till then.

Tim