Met an amazing lady.....

When I was Googling the London Marathon a while ago, I came across this site. Claire Lomas is a former 4* eventer who was paralysed in a fall a few years ago and can only walk with the aid of a robotic machine. Her story came up in my search because she is walking the London Marathon to raise money for Spinal Research.

As we were still in London on Monday after the marathon, we got in touch with Claire and asked if she'd like some company for a bit of her marathon, and she said she would. So on a wet and cold morning, we all headed back into town to find her, and  I'm glad we went. Claire is a real inspiration, she always seems to be positive and smiling. We walked from mile 2 to mile 3 of the marathon in Charlton. It was so wet and involved hills which are really tiring for her so we ended up resting under a bus shelter......

You can really see from this pic how hard it is for her to walk in the suit

She can't feel anything so even knowing when her feet are going to hit the ground is difficult.......

The SNO was very good and didn't whinge (much) and she made friends with Claire's daughter Maisie when we stopped and had lunch with everyone in a café (you can see the "robot" in the background of the pic)

We were really impressed with Claire's courage and determination and will be following her progress round the marathon course. You can sponsor her here, we have........

The London Marathon

Well, today was erm, interesting......
Yesterday we got to Excel to pick up Mike's bib etc, were pleasantly surprised to have to queue for all of five minutes compared to the nearly four hours for Paris. Some organisation at last, we thought, compared to the piss up in a brewery not being organised at all in Paris.

However, today in London we (the spectators) rapidly discovered that the great organisation began with and ended with the runners. Today the fastest way to move around London was to be in the race......

Got to Greenwich, discovered barriers everywhere manned by marshals or police so no nipping over the road wherever you fancied like in Paris. Saw Mike at about 6 miles in, no problem. Then tried to get back on the train.........

Security people everywhere, massive queues, ended up walking miles instead. Then spent an ill advised hour standing on a small ledge in front of some railings which had a good view but made my back ache a lot. Mike arrived just after I'd had enough and had got back down to street level.

Then we had to fight our way to the finish, Mike having the easy option of running there, us having to get on a train, get off at one station, be told that the station we needed was shut, walk to a third station.......wait ages to be able to use the crossing to get to the finishers area, piss ups and breweries were definitely back on!

Still, he made it, very tired but happy. And the pink hair was real, (despite some people thinking it was a Photoshop job) and it worked, he ceratinly got noticed.......!