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Dear Friend,

Many thanks for taking the time to visit my web site.

Monday 19th April 2010

Those of you who are new to my site, my story as to why I am running the marathon is further down the page!

Those of you, who have been following my progress, thank you!

Well the trip to did not start too well; the flight from was nearly four hours late taking off.

The rear door would not shut properly so we had to change planes. On arrival in I had to take my medical certificate to the marathon expo across the other side of the city. You need to have one in order to compete in a race in , at the expo you also have to show proof of identity in order to get your race number and register.

The thought of trying to persuade somebody much quicker than me to run on my behalf just wasn't going to happen, so thought I had better do it myself?

Every one else looked very serious, they all looked like "proper runners", after collecting race number etc, headed back on the metro to the hotel to rest my already weary legs. Spent the night in eating yet more pasta and resisting having my usual beer the night before a race. Maybe I was taking this a little too seriously?

Race day.. , alarm went off at . Race start time was .

The hotel was only 400 yards from the start of the race on the Champs-Elysees, so queuing for the toilet with 40,000 other runners was not an issue. It was very difficult to get into my section of the start. You had been asked what your expected time to complete the race was. My expected time was 3hours 30 minutes. In this section there were 5 pace setters with flags showing, so you could pace yourself.

If all went to plan I would just have to run with them (26.2miles) in order to finish on schedule!

Nice and easy, except you were tripping over each other and were continually blocked in, trying to make any progress was a nightmare. I had been warned not to get frustrated, just to sit behind people and take it easy.

At the half way marker I felt really good and was enjoying the event, the pink tutu was fantastic, loads of people shouting and whistling at me, no idea what they were saying as my French isn't to good unless you want to order a pizza and a few beers! At this point I had overtaken the pace setters and felt comfortable, and up until 20 miles all was ok.

Then I started to feel fatigued, the mile markers seemed to take longer to come by, at 23 miles with only 3.2 to go things started to get really tough, I think I had hit the "dreaded wall" things seemed to go in slow motion, especially me!

When I saw the 26mile marker I stupidly decided to sprint the rest, as I turned the corner the finish still looked miles away, and my poor tired legs were struggling like never before.

Once over the finish line I stopped my watch, 3.29.02 I could not believe the emotion, and could hardly walk let alone run. My official time is 3 hours 29 minutes exactly.

I came 5785 out of 40,000, not too shabby for a 43 year old Englishman wearing a pink tutu on his first and only marathon! I spent the next couple of days hobbling around site seeing with Sue and our friends from .

Thank you so much for your donations and support

See you soon...................  Russell

 

The idea of me running a marathon all came about one evening after a few drinks with some very dear friends of ours.  Apparently I signed an agreement to run a marathon wearing fancy dress, anywhere in the world before I was 50!  When reality finally sank in I began to realise just what a huge and daunting task I had agreed to.  Some of you know that I run already and have done several half marathons, but a full marathon (26.2 miles) in fancy dress – what was I thinking of!  Anyway having agreed to do this several of our friends then said they would like to sponsor me, so what better cause could I think of than raising funds for Alzheimer’s. Now many of you will remember my Dad, as he probably was cleaning your windows whilst I was still in a pram.  He is 78 years old now and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 7 years ago.  We as a family looked after him at home for as long as we could and now he is living at The Uplands where the staff are wonderful with him and can cater for his every need.  So is the venue.  is the date, and the fancy dress is a pink outfit with tu-tu.  My running number is 12821 and you can see how I got on (after I have hopefully crossed the finish line) on the following website: http://www.parismarathon.com/index_us.html

 

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