No blisters, just fond memories

Signing off. Not quite a journey's end, but without doubt a significant mile stone. All said, all run. This blog will be confined to the electronic annals of time, but nothing will erase the fact that I was there, I did it.

From this temporal distance I remember only the elation of the finish, the miles all unwound. But at the time, it was a different story. Tired, and more than a little achy.

Pain omnipresent. The tin man left out over a harsh winter. Shandong Province the unlikely source of a bottle of red playing WD40 substitute.

And the music, oh the music. Bands all along the route, some drumming, some singing, some saxophoning. The lasting image of a sulken cymbal player, passed twice. A forlorn fleece the epitomy of drab colourlessness, but the stripy pants, oh lordy, the stripy pants would have had Joseph himself thinking - Nah, not today. Her face implacable, victim of a change of wind. Thoughts flitting from past to future and back like Audis on the autobahn.

A sign, 18 miles out: "A marathon is just a 10k race with a 20 mile warm up". Will this warm up never end.

Sated banana cravings, high-fiving kids, sponge lined straats, whiffy Italians and stern Copenhagers.

Shine on, followed immediately by Shine, hallucinating on the night that Minnie Timperley died, believe it or not. 21 miles - Mr Blobby down in the tube station at midnight, keep on runnin'.

As I walked to the start line Eleanor Rigby put her face back in the jar by the door and glancing down the street spotted a certain little Ukelele player leaning expectantly against a lamp post.

Coming down the final approach to the Olympic Stadium, just as I began my deluded push for glory, it was ".... run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run" which spurred me on, on, on...

...but I'm afraid John, John, John it wasn't to be as the final bars faded out just as the fabulously faded glory of a 1920's icon fell prostrate before me - to be replaced by roaring crowds, my wonderful support team screaming from the stands, and little Sandie Shaw assuring me that there will always be "something there to remind me" - most probably the scars of the operation I'll now need to shore up my knees.

From the Vondelpark forth the clock was ticking ever quicker, the four hour target which seemed always within reach starting to appear like the merest reflection of itself in a muddy puddle. Come on, you lazy, f, f, f, r. You may never be here again. Legs suddenly spurred on. The last quarter mile the fastest of all and 3:59:02the digits which made it all the more satisfying.

The finish line was never but sweet folly. The point of running was to run, to run, to run. There is no respite just around the bend, there is no final race, nought else, no end.