Marathon Day

Blogging has had to take a back seat for a while as there is so much going on here. But last weekend I was in London and saw the marathon runners for the first time. I was there with some of the family to cheer on my nephew who was running his first full marathon. He was running to support UNICEF and we pitched up at their cheering posts just in time to see him flash by at Mile 13 on the opposite side of the road to us at Mile 22.

My daughter took some great photos.
This one features his wife and children with my granddaughter.

This is where we set up camp and had our picnic lunch during the long wait for him
 to run the next nine miles.

And here he is at last, stopping off long enough to give us all a big hug.

He made it in five and a quarter hours, earning £2.5 thousand in sponsorship for UNICEF. 

Here we all are at the UNICEF meeting point afterwards. 

It was quite a day. When we got back to my daughter's house after battling through the crowds to a train at Waterloo, we were pretty exhausted ourselves, even though we hadn't run 26 miles. It took the Torquay contingent until after 11 to get home by car, so I guess we really were the lucky ones. And we had a fantastic welcome from the dogs, who had been home alone except for going out for a walk with some very helpful friends in the afternoon.