Earlier start today as mentioned on my previous blog as I needed some ice applying to my Achilles, which by the way is really sore, in the morning especially. Once I get some ice on it, and physio treatment along with getting it moving it improves dramatically.
I can't complain, can't complain at all, I'm 7 marathons in to the event and I'm still running, and running reasonably well. There are other runners carrying more injuries than me and also getting around. It's a real team feel here now, as I write this I'm sat in the 'common room' with some of the other runners, we're all nursing some kind of soreness or injuries. It's always a nice time of day this, the mood is often good as we're all got through another day, I'd say my favourite time of day, I'll miss this part, and these people greatly when this journey ends .
After physio this morning we gathered in the athletes room as normal to get our race kit on and receive our morning brief, once the time arrived for the brief Chris Heaton said a few words about the approach to day 7 , weather etc. before handing over to Mark Haynes one of the other runners, we all gathered in a circle , all 20 of us and Mark passed around a message from his daughter , it was an emotional moment as we each read the message and tried to keep it together. Mark said also a few words, in summary he said we are so lucky to be here, don't let it pass you by, so lets go out and run this beautiful course for those who can't...........................................it was a 'sunglasses on indoor' kind of moment......
We walked down the road to the start line with thoughts in our minds of members of the running community who we've lost recently, in particular those members of the Brathay family #runformatt
Once on the road it was good to get down to business, I set off at my usual pace, it was about the 8 mile mark I realised I hadn't eaten my protein bar at the brief as I was trying to keep my shit together during Marks speech, fortunately I was able to pick up a couple of custard creams from the support team at the drinks stop at mile 16, ok so it's not a protein bar.....but 7 marathons in who cares, its just about calories now.
I had some difficult moments today, in particular around mile 18 - 21 and felt I'd lost too much time form my planned finish time of 3:50, however I had a real good end to the day and ran well from Ice Cream Mountain all the way through the last 5 miles to the end, two Spit Fires flew over head as I approached Brathay across the clear blue sky, quite a moment.
When I ran down the lawn to the finish banner I was pumped up, punched the air, threw my water bottle and shouting 'get in there!!!' Not been like that before, but I fought for today, really fought to recover a couple of bad spells I had
Day 7 done, back of the net, get in! Green Light to go again and we move on to number 8 tomorrow, I'm literally in dream land and on the edge of something amazing.
Cant thank everyone enough for the nice comments and donations, had a £100 donation today!!!!! :)
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