Heart warming achievements

Well done to everyone who took part in the London Marathon, from the supreme elite athletes at the front to the fun runners/walkers at the back. John did well, finishing within his four hour window, and his "posse," a group of ladies from the Orion Harriers he has been coaching, all did extremely well, one of them steaming past him in the final mile. The posse were kind enough to give me a bunch of flowers later, but it was them who did all the hard work. I've had a lot of fun hearing about the training from John and some of the exchanges:
- "Can we start at 8.30am instead of 8 and can we do 14 miles instead of 18?"
- "Who's going to tell John?"
During the downpour, as I anxiously scanned the thousands of runners to spot John, a mile from Tower Bridge, I expatiated on the nature of running. Running creates special people. We all know the health benefits; we read about it everyday as the fat idle journalists lambast Britain for obese teenagers, transfats, drinking wine in pregnancy, large measures of wine and type 2 diabetes. But what I have discovered is that once running gets into the pysche, people not only become fitter but they become more well rounded; more advanced as people.
I got talking to a 75 year old veteran member of the Orion Harriers, Ken, who has run all 27 London Marathons. I asked him if he would be having a rest period now (even J does) but he laughed and said no, he would be doing a swimming marathon for charity later this week.
And then you consider Buster, the 101 year old, running a marathon at his age. Amazing when most teenagers could not even contemplate it.
I suddenly started to feel guilty, that I've always been half hearted when I've tried running, and decided that I should try again. With that in mind, I'm now signed up for the Adidas women's challenge 5k in September. Three miles is hardly anything, and I could probably do it now, albeit very slowly, but I hope the race experience will spur me on to better things. It would be very cool to run London next year and have John enduring the misery of being a spectator for once!