April 20, 2003

Abigail Aces London Marathon

These gorgeous lassies accompanied me to cheer on Abigail in the London marathon last Sunday. We camped out at mile 10, keeping a keen lookout for Abigail whilst shouting out the names of other runners who had written their names on their shirts. Abigail passed us smiling, full of energy and quite able to chat. My plan was to see her again at miles 17 and 22 but I underestimated how long it would take me to wade through the thousands of other supporters. There were long queues to get through the turnstiles of the Jubilee line, even longer queues to get on the train and of course, the longest wait of all was for the loo. I arrived at mile 17 about 10 minutes late. I waited for a while in case she was still slightly behind schedule, but when I saw the big black bottle run past, I knew I had missed her. By that time I was too late to shoot over to mile 22. Brian was waiting for her at 21.5 and made contact, reporting afterward that with less than 5 miles to go she still looked energetic. Abigail had a brilliant finish, crossing the line in 3:53:25!