Women's Olympic Marathon!

This morning I made it up to London to see my first bit of live Olympics! I caught a 7am train to get there for 9am, which was probably too early with hindsight. It was a lovely sunny morning though, so I had coffee and did some sightseeing.

Could have had a bit more time in bed...

St Paul's Cathedral on the route

 I found a good spot just before 10am, and sat down with a magazine to wait. Gradually the clouds got darker and thicker, and at about 10.45am, the heavens opened. It absolutely bucketed down, but I was stoic, and refused to leave my spot.

Getting soaked

Just when we thought the rain couldn't get any worse, it got worse. It was torrential for a while, and my jeans and bag got soaked. In fact I had a wet backside all day, even on the train home, which was not the most comfortable way to sit down.

Eventually, at about 11.30am, the leaders of the pack appeared!

Front runners

They whizzed past, and it wasn't easy to see through the still-quite-heavy-rain. I just about managed to pick out the two remaining British runners.

Claire Hallissey (GB) 2nd from right

As soon as they had gone, I gave in, and went under a roof for shelter. After a while, the rain turned to drizzle, and later it cleared up altogether and the sun came out again. I never really dried out though...

Before the second lap, I changed position, and for this and the third and final lap, I was so close to the runners! I could have high fived them, if they'd been willing. I didn't try though.

The lead group is lead by Keitany (who finished 4th), then Gelana, Jeptoo, and Arkhipova, who took Gold, Silver and Bronze.

A little further on was American Kara Goucher, who finished 11th.

And later still came British Claire Hallissey, who finished 57th, behind Paula Radcliffe's last minute replacement Freya Murray who was 44th (and who I saw several times, but never managed to photograph, for some reason).

You might be able to hear me shout 'Come on Claire' as Hallissey goes past. If you pause the videos, you can see the runners much more clearly. I could have done with a much more expensive camera to get good shots of these fast runners!


By the time I left, the sun had come out again.

St Paul's again, with more crowds

It was great to see it up close, and I'm glad I went, although it wasn't a great event for Team GB! We are going again next Thursday, as Pete and I have tickets for women's basketball (GB are out of that too). Can't wait!