What a fantastic weekend, We arrived at the Holiday Inn Hotel on Saturday afternoon, I was very impressed, The room was lovely and the staff were so nice.

Sunday morning we headed off early to the start point, the weather was great for running. Within 2 minutes of starting I was overheating so had to remove yellow hat and rain coat, I judged that wrong.

I kept to pace really well and was on target to finish the marathon in about 3 hours 45 but on mile 18 my toe started to hurt on my right foot and by mile 20 was hurting quite a bit. On mile 22 I got a blister under my big toe on my left foot so by mile 23 my pace had dropped to over 10 mins per mile. When I got past mile 25 I was getting tired and starting to slow down even more but then saw my son and daughter waiting for me, They ran the last bit with me and gave me the extra kick I needed to finish.

It was such a good marathon to run and Portsmouth was lovely to visit, I would love to do it again some day.

I have a half marathon booked for March which should keep me going until I can book another full marathon later next year.