Good luck to all FLMers

[Peterward3]

Well done Mick.

No one can take that achievement away from you.

Finishing at all is a great thing in itself and under five hours too. Well done. Great report as well.

Peter

[El Gordo]

Mick, that is a GREAT race report. Thank you.

Too many things to want to comment on at the moment, but I feel empathy for how you felt at the end. Well, when I did my first marathon, also London, I did feel much more emotional than you. Like many others, I cried as I shuffled up the Mall. However this year, at Zurich, I felt The Void rather than the cornucopia of delight that I wanted and expected as my reward for getting round in my target time. There was quite a sense of anti-climax, despite desperately wanting to be able to report something different.

But anyway, you're now a marathoner, and be proud. Your instincts (like mine) might want to shuffle off such embarrassing conceits, but one day soon, perhaps when you're on your own with a glass or two of decent wine inside you, it will thump you like a brick between the eyes. There's nothing quite like a marathon to make you feel simultaneously like a helpless baby and a total god.

I hope you'll stick around with us while you slowly start your assault on some new Everest.

------

And I'm still pissed off that you beat my Zurich time by 1 minute.....

:mad:

[marathondan]

Andy, your worst nightmare: a professional journalist on the forum!

Mick, thanks for a great report and well done for your heroic finish. I did my first marathon last year and, like you, was too drained at the end to feel anything much - while everyone around me was either whooping or weeping.

You say that you want to learn from your mistakes, but did you really make any? The only possibility I can think of is that you slightly overtrained for your level of conditioning, and those extra 4 miles beyond the training distance were just too much. Other than that, it just sounds like, for whatever reason, it was one of those bad days at the office for your legs...

Good luck with the 2007 training!