London Marathon weekend

I was allowed to leave work early to catch the train at 4pm from Preston to Euston. We arrived in London at about 6.11pm and actually got an apology from the conductor that we were early and sorry for any inconvenience caused!!! I reckon he's more used to apologising for being late.
Since we were an hour earlier than I thought we were going to be, I decided to go and register so that I could have a bit more time with Fran and Rick the following day. What a journey across London!! We took the northern line and then changed onto the Jubilee line. From Tower Bridge we changed onto the Docklands light railway and got on the wrong train going towards Arsenal and Woolwich instead of Beckton. So back we went and eventually arrived at the Excel Centre at Custom house.
The centre is massive and as we had some heavy bags Graham stayed outside with them so he could have a cig whilst he waited for me.
A long walk down to the arch of blue and white balloons and the BBC marathon music. I got quite emotional going in to register through that arch. There was no-one queuing at my desk so i went through very quickly. For the uninitiated, I had to show them my passport and give them my registration form, I signed it in front of them and they gave me my race number, final instructions and kit bag. I then had to go and collect my championship chip and have that initiated. Once that was done I stepped into an aladin's cave for runners. What a good job i didn't have enough time to spend looking at all the kit. I could almost hear Graham grumbling about spending money. My credit cards certainly heaved a sigh of relief when I came out.
I did buy a small bear and some lucozade gels but that's all.
As I didn't want to walk all the way round to the exit, I left via the entrance, completely missing a goody bag. I found out later it didn't contain much anyway, just a bottle of London pride and a small bottle of Cranberry juice.
So once I'd done that we set off back across London to Liverpool Street Station for the train to Bishops Stortford. Both of us quite weary by now, but it was a fairly fast train and Rick came to meet us at the station.
Saturday morning we relaxed a bit and Rick found out the train journey over to the hotel and then to the start of the race for me.
Off again at 1:15pm to Bank and then the DLR to south Quay. We had been upgraded to Executive room which was lovely. I had a bit of a sleep whilst Graham went for a wander round.
Went to dinner at about 6:30pm and had a drink (orange for me) whilst we watched PNE beat birmingham (bonus).
Service was very slow and I wasn't all that impressed with that.
Slept well and got up at 6am for a bite to eat and a drink and set off to the start just after 7;15am. The trains were quite busy even at that time, but we managed to get to the start without much of a problem. It was a fantastic atmosphere, runners all over the place resting, talking, doing the sort of things runners do before a big race. one of the main things being queueing for the toilets. It got to the stage just before the start where you went to the loo then re-joined the queue.
i think that with it being so warm everyone was taking on extra liquid.
There was a large TV screen feeding in pictures from around the site and the announcer kept the crowd's spirits up.
Women's race started, then we were all told to get to the start pens. Lots of nervous faces around. I got into the 6 pen for the 10min milers which was the one I was allocated. The crowd of athletes slowly started moving and then all of a sudded moved quite quickly as the gun went off. Loads of men jumped over the barriers for a final pee and then rejoined the throngs.
I got off at 9:52am. More to follow.