Well this was another run that I had booked quite a while ago and which found me at the starting line at nowhere near a sensible running weight. That said I had done a decent amount of training with quite a few  18,19 & 20 mile runs over the preceeding 6 weeks.

The day before I tipped the scales at 13 Stone 6 pounds. Rather than be discouraged and depressed about my inability to get the weight off, I felt inspired, in awe even of how I have managed to adapt to being an (ultra) fat runner. 3 or so years ago I couldn’t run at all once I got past about 12 Stone 3 pounds, now here I am stepping up to do 26 miles and all on tarmac too !

In the end it was the easiest marathon I have ever done. It helped that it was a nice flat course with plenty to look at and cool too, but really I think I am just used to these sort of  distances now so I tapped away one foot in front of another suffering a dip about mile 19 as I got dehydrated but I knew what the problem was and paused at the next two drinks stations to take on lots of liquid and a couple of S! caps and soon I was feeling absolutely fine again. I got around with least effort and pain, ever, though I could not have managed without wearing a backpack with the waist strap in place to support my belly.

There was plenty of gas left in the tank at the end and a real feeling that “the ultrafatrunner” had come of age. A quick change and it was off into centrum to track down  some beer.

4hrs 42mins