London marathon report - part 2

Sunday. Race day. The bus leaves from the hotel at 06:50 am. There is no satisfactory answer to the nagging question "why am I doing this?"

At the start the ballons seem to get bigger from one year to another:




Our group spills out of several buses and marches to the blue start:




The equivalent to the lounge chair towel reservation in the start area is a flag:


Of course, we have the biggest one clearly marking our territory:

The media's interest is not in us, but the elite runners, who start from the blue start just like the overseas runners do:

We had to wait a couple of hours, but there was entertainment:

Achim doesn't snap shot. This camera means business:

Runners relax in various ways: standing up, sitting, lying down...

The race itself was as already reported: first half went well, second half was painful. But there was at least one happy finisher: