Edinburgh...........

We flew to Edinburgh on Friday afternoon. The boys were excited about flying, especially Matthew as he hadn't flown for several years. The flight was great, quite a clear day, so we had brilliant views. We took the airport express to Edinburgh city centre, so far everything was going to plan. This was a relief as I had been more anxious about actually getting there than running in the previous few days. The Holyrood Apart-hotel was very sleek and clean, a two bedroomed serviced apartment about 10 minutes walk from the start of the race.

We wandered around Edinburgh for a few hours dealing with the normal ups and downs of having two excited boys with us. Steve chose a mexican restaurant to eat at which had been recommended by the hotel. James however, wasn't so keen. He was convinced that the staff there were going to poison us. I'm not sure where this sudden paranoia came from, but happily it proved to be completely unfounded.

The next crisis was Matthew's. Unfortunately it hadn't registered with him that when he ordered vegetable fajitas, it would include a lot of vegetables. As the sizzling platter of aubergine, mushroom, carrots, broccoli, onions and peppers arrived, Matthew departed with a cry of "I'm not eating THAT!". Horrid Henry sprung to mind. James by now was quite happy with his processed fish shape with chips and ketchup.

Saturday was spent trying to sort out suitable meeting places for the race. This proved more complicated than we had originally thought. The walk from the railway station to the mile 9 point took us a couple of hours. Admittedly, it was probably only a half an hour walk in reality but we made frequent stops to take photos and to play in the river, and there was no reason to think that it would be any different the following day. Added to that, there were less trains running on a Sunday so it meant the timing was even more important.

I was beginning to feel a bit frustrated. Everything seemed to be proving more complicated than I had thought. I had hoped that Steve would be able meet me at mile 9, mile 13, mile 21 and at the finish. It was an out and back course so mile 9 and the finish were at a place called Musselburgh, and mile 13 and 21 were at a place called Seton Sands.

It was now obvious that it wouldn't be logistically possible for them to meet me at both points. We briefly discussed that we would miss out the Seton Sands meeting point, but the thought of running the last 17 miles without seeing them seemed awful. Eventually we decided to skip the first meeting point and just see each other at Seton Sands. This way the boys could play on the beach and hopefully everyone would be happy!

Back in Edinburgh that evening, I was feeling pretty exhausted. We had walked for miles, probably not the best thing to do the day before the marathon. We had pasta for tea and then trundled back to our apartment for a DVD and an early night. The boys were absolute stars. They went to bed without any fuss even though they were sharing a room, which usually keeps them up for ages.