Well there we are. I finished the Bath half-marathon with sunburn and a provisional time of 1 hour and 57 minutes, which I will keep, thanks very much. Was much harder at the end than I expected and I’d begun to reconcile myself to finishing over the 2-hour mark, so I was pretty happy. Will have to see what the final chip time is when they get the results up on the site. [update: turned out to be 1:56:18 in the end]

More importantly, I raised over £400 for Mind. Thank you very much indeed to those of you who were kind enough to support me. I really appreciate it: it helped get me round the course, and it’ll help Mind to provide support to more people with mental distress. Well done us.

Other notes from the day. People dressed as Kiss (three members, makeup running on second lap), teletubby Po (not seen after the start, may have wisely discarded his felt outfit), a rhino (armoured), a man wearing nothing but pink lamé hotpants called Matt, fairies, flourescent tutu-wearing fairies, a fruit-bowl, Robin Hood, “I’m A Lady” man from that show on BBC, a cow, tigers and a whoopee cushion. And some people dressed as soldiers who turned out actually to be soldiers, running with full marine packs. There were live bands (a samba band in Queen Square, Irish flute and guitar somewhere on Lower Bristol Road) and speakers in front gardens, and lots of people cheering on their friends. There were lots of ambulances and St Johns staff to look after the people who collapsed from dehydration. I got given a bag with a medal and a tshirt and lots of free samples of things. And my teeth still hurt from all the Lucozade I gulped down after the finish.

Time for a sit-down.