The London Marathon

This morning Gavin left early to get to Greenwich for the start of the London Marathon, and Luke and I went up later by train to go watch him. It was a cold day, which was good for the runners - a new course record time of 2 hours, 3 minutes and 5 seconds was achieved by the winner although he sadly missed out on the world record by 7 seconds!

Gavin started off very strong and crossed the halfway mark in 93 minutes, but at 17 miles his back was in such agony that he slowed right down. He has been suffering with lower back pain for the last few weeks of his training and today it really affected his race. He finished in 3 hours 25 minutes which is still a fantastic time but not near his personal best of 3 hours 13 minutes.

I took many photos and did not know which one to blip but eventually chose this one as Gavin says the best thing about the London Marathon is the support from the crowd - he has never experienced such wonderful support in any other marathon. This shows the crowd supporting those runners as they come past Parliament Square with just over 1 km to go. Today was Gavin's 40th marathon and he says it will be his last - we will see! Luke was so inspired by the support and wonderful emotions of the day that he says he would like to run it with his dad.

If you wish to see more images from the London Marathon, have a look at these. I have added some extras of Gavin