On a day celebrating St George, the patron saint of England, around about 35,000 brave souls (it would be a stretch to call them all runners) turned up on a cold, grey and wet morning (so, yes a typical London day) to put themselves through my idea of torture – two (for the elite elite athletes) to maybe up to seven hours of pounding the pavement: a 26.2mile test of commitment …. and over a half a million of us turned up to watch them go through this torture!

As you can well imagine the London Marathon is a huge event on the running calendar. This year we actually knew someone running so there was a definite motivation for us to get out there and cheer Sir Jules on. But it was no regular cheering that Sandra planned. She kitted us out with some super cool T-shirts (I’m sure all the other runners were jealous of Sir Jules) and off we went to catch him at the 12 mile mark and then the 25 mile mark. With the hordes of spectators who turn up at the marathon its definitely a good idea to get to your spot early to make sure you have good cheering position. The elite athletes are relatively easy to spot but the further back you go the larger the packs of runners are so it takes huge concentration to spot your runner. Knowing which side they’re going to run is also a great help.

The atmosphere at the marathon is amazing, especially in the latter stages of the race when I’m sure plenty of the entrants are relying purely on the adrenalin that the crowd provide with their applause and shouting. I hope we did our part in making sure Sir Jules get to the end. He was disappointed with his time of 3:39 but I think its very impressive considering he just ran an ultra marathon in South Africa a couple of weeks back.

We celebrated his finish (and in line with St George’s day) with a traditional Sunday roast at a nearby pub and a game of football (watching not playing naturally). Can’t get more English than that!

Here are some of the photos from the day: