Well where do I start with this, our plan was to help our Son Christopher who had entered the London Marathon in 2021 but due to personal problems and injuries had deferred until 2023. Having retired from running due to a road traffic collision in September 2022 sustaining crush injuries to my leg with a very deep laceration to my tibia. My focus was to support Christopher and help him achieve his goal and dreams in following the rest of his family in completing the London Marathon.
I started coaching Christopher just after Christmas 2022 and slowly built his confidence and endurance and also found myself improving as physical exercise has been helping my anxiety problems since my collision. With 5 London Marathons under my belt 3 in London and 2 virtually In Blackpool I felt that the best chance for Christopher to complete the course is if I did it with him. I applied to compete with 4 charities and to my surprise they all said yes and offered me a place, and I decided on running for Sense. Training was always going to be tough and at times I felt like a drill instructor in the Army, but Marathon training is never an easy undertaking and during your journey you will almost certainly find out more about yourself and ask yourself the same questions time and time and why are you doing this to yourself. Christopher even surprised himself during his training sessions and took them very seriously. We attended as many sessions with the amazing Blackpool Freedom Runners who are very supportive and give up their free time to help anybody who wants to run, they are really are amazing 🧡🖤. As time went on my incredible Wife Louise was able to get a place with Children with Cancer so Christopher had both his Parents supporting him with 10 London Marathons between us he was in very good company. For us to complete the London Marathon this time was going to take a lot of planning and getting our race strategy correct. I had to plan nutrition not only for me but Christopher for the race so I had to carry a back pack as well as 2 running belts that contained electrolyte / dextrose tablets and running jells. I had a good plan but it wasn’t really tested so it was very much an unknown entity. We had a plan I was confident and we had my Son Bradley and his Girlfriend Rebecca who came with us to London as part of our support Team who were going to pop up up in various locations on the course with extra treats and hugs. So we left Blackpool on the Friday evening to travel to London by train and we were staying in Tower Hamlets not too far from Greenwhich the start of the Marathon.
After only 2hrs 50 we arrive in London and need to navigate our way to the other side of London to Canning Town station. We did but could we find our accommodation 🤣 we knew that we were close and we heard a Man say is it the Mowbray’s as we were stumbling around with suitcases 🤣 it was the host and he directed us to where we should be. It was a very nice large studio appartment the ticked every box.
The next day we had to be up early to register for the London Marathon at the Expo centre. Our problem was that we had been split up with each of us starting in different locations Red, Blue and Green so our plan was to try and start together in Green at Maize Hill. The Expo is always very busy on the Saturday before the race so our plan was to go register pick our numbers up and then leave.
The night before any race it’s important to eat the right foods do we decided on a Chinese restaurant and consumed a huge amount of fish/meat and vegetables
We then went back to our appartment to get our kit ready for the race and to relax 🤣
So up early on race day 4.30am not by choice but a mixture of stress and excitement as I personally had concerns that my leg would swell during the race and I would need to drop out. It was massaged and taped up the day before so fingers crossed. We made our start with only 10 mins to spare due to lack of concentration on the tubes and missing stops. But we arrived it was raining and we just went it was quite surreal. I quickly found as I didn’t train in the rain since my accident but my limb was slipping every so often on the wet tarmac as I had suffered some nerve damage and part of my foot was numb but adapted to the situation.
Our strategy was to make the iconic Tower Bridge the halfway point in around 3 hours of which for us under the circumstances would have been amazing
We made Tower Bridge in 3hrs 🙏🎉
So after Tower Bridge the course doubles back on itself as we wave at the runners on the opposite side of the road at mile 23 heading for home we have another 13 miles to go and the tricky part of the course as we head towards the concrete jungle of Canary Wharf.
Spot a sign that looks like Bradley our Son
My Wife sadly lost her Dad a few weeks before and Christopher his Grandad so this race took on a whole new meaning leading up to it 🙏
As we finished 🎉
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=754312649653906&id=608539149
Edited version 🤣 thanks Chris 🤣
Next day up early as the BBC wanted to have an interview live before we made our way around London before going home
So what’s our plans, a few people suggested that we just had run it one final time together as a Family of FIVE and out of the blue Team VICTA offered all of us the opportunity to do just that so for one very last time we will be in the the 2024 TCS London Marathon.
Thank you for reading I hope that you enjoyed my report, thank you to those who supported us you mean everything to us and those who didn’t maybe next time you will ♥️🎉
Peter Mowbray Live In Blackpool
