6am and the alarm goes off. I turn it off. Then another goes off, that one goes off too. Then a third. I set three alarms: I've been so nervous that I'd not been sleeping so good. I get up and start moving around. I can hear others in the hotel moving around as well. This hotel is about 6 miles outside of town; I some to a hotel owner in town yesterday, he said that he could have let his rooms three times over!
I scoff some cereal and have a cuppa tea and a coffee, dress and jump in the car. The park and ride is only three miles way, but I'm not absolutely sure where it is. Anyway, I do miss the exit and then run into a horrendous queue. But since these are all marathoners too (you can tell), I'm not worried.
The start is a park in the middle of Brighton, a few miles from the beach. I drop my bag off with my rain mac in and wander around for a bit. It's quite a buzz. I am so anxious: I have no clear idea that I can do this. I say a prayer and talk to my nan for a bit.
Paula Radcliffe does some speech about how she won so many marathons. Funny, not stopping to take a wee didn't figure in it.
I'm in the less than four hour group. I know that if I can do the distance, that I can't do it in e time I originally thought I could. So I find some space at the back and just soak up the vibe.
These events are amazing: the feelings and energy at the start is electric!
Almost without knowing it, the race starts! A loud trumpet sound and that's it. I pretty much walk to the start line … I have a feeling that I might need every ounce of energy that I've got! And, besides, I need to establish in my own head that I need to run at my pace and not get swept along with the crowd. If I start too fast, I may not finish.
The first few miles of the race wind down towards the pier. On the way I see someone else wearing an Alzheimer's Society vest, so I wish them luck. His name is Luke and his story absolutely broke my heart: his mum has Alzheimer's and is in the final stages of the disease. She's had it so long that he simply cannot remember a time when she was normal.
We stick together for almost the whole race. He's good company and really helps me to keep going. He says he's after 10 minute miles; since I work in kilometres that didn't mean too much for me, but his pace feels easy enough and we keep each other going.
The next leg of the race leads eastwards asking the coast tracing white cliffs. It's pretty undulating, or hilly as is perhaps a better way of putting it. But the fresh air welcome. Trotting on it looks like we're about to turn round and then we notice that the turn around is a mile inland somewhere. All these races do that, make it look like you're at a turn and then lead you off somewhere.
My knees are starting to hurt, so I pop a couple of ibuprofen, which help enormously.
Trotting back towards the town we pass the pier. The next time we see it, we'll be heading back to the start. 13 miles is only a few hundred meters away from the pier, and just past that is the Brighton Centre - where (if you been paying attention) I've been recently banging on about ABBA, Eurovision and forty years.
Chat chat chat trot trot trot.
Luke says a few times that if I want to run ahead, that I should feel free to. I say the same to him. At one point I say that I've got a stitch and say that he'd best go on ahead. But we stick together.
My emotions are a bit random; sometimes I feel like crying: this whole experience is so amazing. I am so stunned that I am doing this: that geeky, bullied kid runs a marathon!
We head into some posh residential region. Suddenly I found that I was tired and bored. This is a really long straight stretch and it's doing my head in. Miles fourteen and fifteen are an absolute drudge. Then sixteen is approaching and suddenly I'm full of beans. An energy gel might have helped, but I was aware that I was coming up to seventeen miles and I wasn't crippled. So I'm cheering myself and Luke on, but he doesn't look right.
His furthest run was eighteen miles, only a mile further than myself, and he was now approaching that. I keep cheering him on. Then he gets cramp. The penny drops: he is struggling and can't keep up. I'm really disappointed, but I'm not helping him, so I go ahead.
The final stretch is westward towards some power station type thing and back. I feel great! Mile twenty, twenty-one, then twenty-two, then crash!
Pain increases and power fails. I take more energy gels and drink, but it's become a struggle like never before.
But I can now see the pier. I know it's less than four miles - that's a windy run home. An easy run. I just have to keep going, one foot at a time. I can do it. I know I can. I only have to keep it up for less than an hour. Then only twenty, fifteen, ten minutes.
Then I pass the pier - only four hundred meters. I feel as though I'm going to cry and then I can see it! My legs are moving, but I'm not going any faster, but I am getting there!
Emotions are all over the place, they have been all weekend, all race! I pass the line and my mind is completely blank! All I want is to lie down. My heart it's beating and feels quite unlike anything I've ever felt before. My hands feel numb. This isn't good: I have to try and keep moving and come down gently. God! I want a cup if tea!
So there you go. I run 26.2 miles and what I want most is a nice cup of tea!
After the race, I wait around and watch some of the other runners come in. It's really moving: these people are still moving and this is now five or six hours after the start. All sorts have run in this race. As you'd expect, there's the usual young hotties, but there are the old, crippled and flabby running too: these are the ones that inspire me - this is a real challenge for them and they did it! I don't know any of them, but I feel such immense admiration for them!
I'm so dazed after the race, that it takes me a couple of hours to work out that the bus back to car park was behind me the whole time … and so I come home from one of the most incredible experiences if my life.
When I got to bristol, I continued up to St Peters church to sit by my Nan's grave and show her my medal.
My emotions continue to wander all over the place - elated at one moment and tears the next.
Thank you everyone for your love and support: I could not have done it without you - together we will have raised (including ALD's contribution) about £900.
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