London Marathon 2018

I can’t believe that it has been over a week since I completed the London Marathon… but it wasn’t any marathon it was the hottest London marathon on record – It definitely felt like it too!I managed to complete it in 7 hour and 14 minutes which was only 45 minutes over what I was aiming for and considering how hot it was I definitely wasn’t disappointed by the time either.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9cDfzg3Y78I am now the proud owner of a very impressive medal which has had a few outings to flaunt it!The marathon weekend was very busy for me as I decided to go to the expo on the last day that it was open (it just worked out easier that way). Although I managed to have a good look around and get out of there before it got too busy with people making the trip to the excel centre to collect their race numbers, time chips and other goodies!I then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to stay out of the sun (the last thing I wanted was sun stroke the day before the marathon) and killing time before meeting my parents to check into our hotel.Luckily we had a hotel booked called the Angerstein Hotel which was close to the start in Greenwich and definitely made the trip to the start line a lot easier to navigate.I woke up very early on the day of the marathon and I was very lucky to receive a ton of super nice and supportive messages from all of my friends and family, I got ready, strapped up my knees and covered myself in suncream.By this point the nerves started to kick in. I couldn’t even eat breakfast!We walked up to the train station and then had a short walk up to the red start zone. Once I had dropped my bag off I took the one piece of advice I had been given from the beginning ‘get in the que for the toilet asap’ so I did.Once I had made it through the never ending toilet que I made it to my start pen and waited for the marathon to start.My pen eventually made it over the start line at approximately 10.44am I knew I didn’t want to start off too fast but it was very difficult to not just sprint over the start line and I think I managed to keep a pretty steady pace for the first few miles! My first challenge was when I twisted my ankle at mile 3 (this felt very early to have something like that happen) so I ended up slowing down to a fast walk to try and get over it a bit.It wasn’t long before I was able to pick back up to running again but the heat definitely started to become an issue at around mile 7  and it was long after that that the water started to run out at the water stations. Thankfully there’s were people along the course who has jugs of water they were handing out, people with ice lollies, and even kids with water guns – which all helped so much!The whole atmosphere and support from all of the people watching was incredible and definitely helped you to keep going! I also haven’t heard ‘Stacey’s mum’ sung so many times in one day!I was so glad to see my parents just after mile 25 by which point my feet felt like they were covered in bubble wrap, my shins and muscles didn’t feel as thought they were connected together anymore. I cut across to see them but didn’t stick around for too long because I knew if I stopped I wouldn’t be able to keep going.I cant describe what a great feeling it was to cross the finish line and be given the medal. There were so many points throughout the course that I didn’t think I could keep going or that I wanted to give up but I reminded myself of all the people who had told me I wouldn’t be able to do it and I just kept going. I might not have the best time with 7 hours and 14 minutes but I completed it and I’m very proud of the fact that I have the London Marathon checked off my bucket list!You can also still sponsor me if you want to:www.justgiving.com/staceyjhubbard