Boston – one year on.

Last summer, I got a phone call from Ros, saying she’d missed the deadline for her guaranteed entry into the London Marathon. She was understandably gutted. She had qualified as ‘good for age’ (a fantastic achievement) so had a guaranteed space, but had not sent the form back in time. #busymumsyndrome

A couple of weeks after that, while we were out on a run together, she mentioned that she thought she might qualify for Boston. Without pausing for thought, I replied that if she got in, I’d go and be her support team. Well, it can’t have been more than a few days later I got a text. It simply read “I’m in!”

With my Dad on planning duty (he’s retired and lives in Boston) all we had to do was get there (and train, obv) and the rest was sorted for us. Little did we realise the extent to which our visit had been anticipated – we were even in the paper! Union flags out, reporters wanting to speak to Ros, it was a whirlwind few days. Meeting the delightful Sophie Rayworth from the BBC was fabulous – what a lovely lady, having the wheelchair winner on our flight home was wicked, but the strongest memory has to be the emotion. Oh the emotion. I think I spent much of the day in tears! So many stories going round of people coming back after not being able to finish last year, going to the finish line and standing where last year’s atrocities took place was utterly overwhelming. Not to mention the incredible cameraderie between the runners AND between the supporters. Brilliant. Just brilliant. And of course Ros was an absolute legend. The weather was SO hot, the course was SO hilly and she still managed to finish in a hugely respectable 4 hours and 23 minutes. Just to put that into context ; she was on form for about a 3 hours 45 on a flat course. THAT’s how demanding this run was. Ros you legend. Oh and don’t worry too much about getting your entry in on time for London next year 😉