M2M - DAY 1!!

Oh my God that was a long day! We were up at 5am and left the hotel at 5:45 to be at Banbas crown for 6. There we met the worlds nicest press photographer and Jo did her now familiar model gig. (Apologies for the quality of our photos, we'll tidy them up later)

Bang on the turn of 6am we fired the (imaginary) gun and off we went. Steff and I followed in the camper.

We quickly settled into a fairly steady routine, at 3 or 4 K I would grab the feed bag and jump out and run up to Jo and hand it over. I'd run with her until the feed was finished and then jump back in the van. As we were up in the wilds going at 5 or 6mph wasn't an issue.

We tipped along pretty handily until the City of Derry where a swap in the routine was forced and I jumped on the bike. There was a bit of a delay at one feed stop and Jo had to navigate herself across a roundabout but we were met by some briliant guys from the City of Derry Athletics club. Hopefully more details later but a stretch with Irelands fastest miler felt good! At this stage we were also being stalked by the TG4 camera crew, I hope you all saw it!

After that Charlie (Jo's brother) turned up and helped share the load, he and I taking turns running and biking beside Jo to keep the feed routine going.

There was a small glitch first thing - Google seems not to be too hot on the extremities of Ireland and our timetable was based on leaving from 15 - 20kms further south than we actually did. It's a shame but we were more or less bang on the revised schedule but it does mean we are going to be starting from around an hour north of Eniskillen. If anyone is thinking of joining us please phone or mail Steff for an accurate schedule. And you really have no idea how great it was to meet the Derry runners and Charlie, it lifted so much pressure off me and gave Jo a great boost.

Headline numbers 42.2 in 3:52ish, 84,4 in 8:13ish, 100kms in 9:59ish. Full details available when we do the Garmin upload, obviously that will be made public!

Jo is now back from the massage and feeling good (who feels good after 125kms?!)

Keep up the texts and emails of support (they help to!) and a *vast* and *huge* thank you to everyone who has given so generously. You rock! (kind of like I did on that damn bike...)