Set of Saturday morning for the 10.15 train from Glasgow to Inverness. With leg room, toilets and a buffet trolley, I find this journey relaxing and great value. The train is full mainly of fellow runners, so there was many a marathon tale told on the journey up. Within 30 minutes of arriving in Inverness I was in my B & B and laying up on my bed ready to watch an afternoon of sport. Got a text from John K letting me he had arrived safely and had registered for race.

At 6.00pm I met young Michael and we went and registered and then attended the pasta party, which I really enjoyed. Back in my B & B for 7.30 I settled down once more in front of the TV for a night of sport, so by bedtime I was so relaxed I found it hard to sleep.

On the Sunday morning I was feeling pretty nervous and struggled to eat my breakfast of porridge followed by scrambled eggs on toast. By 8.00am I had meet up with John, Michael & Lesley and we were soon on the bus and heading off. Two of John's WHW running family Ian and Phil sat beside us on the bus and they helped the journey past quickly as they swapped stories of WHW  training and races. After a light warm up and some stirring pipe music we were ready for the off. Conditions where prefect for running and I felt my target of sub 3.10 was possible.

I choose to start with Ian & Phil as I felt they would be running around my chosen pace, but right from the start they were running 6.30 to 6.40  pace to fast for me. The first 4 miles of the race you are actually running down hill and it is easy to go off quickly. I was trying to run at 7 min to 7.10 pace and struggled to get it right. After the early miles I found myself running mainly on my own, if I wasn't getting passed I was passing. Ian was long out of sight and I was surprised to catch up with Phil at the 9 mile point. He ran with me for the next mile and then I was on my own again. Going through half in 1.31 was a couple of minutes quicker than intended, and I hoped I would not suffer to much for this later.

Having ran this marathon before I knew mile 17 to 19 was tough, but I reached this point feeling good, and just worked my way steadily over this tough section. From mile 20 its pretty flat to the finish and at mile 21 was really surprised to see Ian away in the distance. I then decided to try closing the gap and found this really helped me focus. So thanks Ian. The gap closed a lot but during mile 24 my legs were starting to go and my new focus was just to finish inside 3.07.58 my previous pb.

The last mile was really tough so when I entered the stadium and the clock was at 3.06.20 with about 70 metres to go I was relieved as the legs were done. 3.06.43 was my finishing time. You are well looked after at the finish and I collected my baggage and got dressed quickly and headed off to watch the others come in. Phil was soon home quickly followed by John, both clocking great times. I then went off and found Michaels parents and waited with them till Michael came in with a new pb time. My legs were now beginning to seize and I decided to head for the hot bath.

So sorry Lesley I never saw you finish, but you also had a great run. A long soak in the hot bath back at my B & B soon brought me  back to life and by 2.15pm I had order a taxi and was heading for lunch in city centre pub. I remained there till it was time for my train home. Train was pretty quiet on the journey home and I was able to get the shoes off and feet up and managed to sleep most of the way.

Picked up in Glasgow and home for 8.00pm I settled down to watch Scotland in the world cup with a nice single malt. So all in all it was a good weekend and well done to everyone.