Well I did it!
5:00:53 for me. My first one.
Absolutely gutted about the 54 seconds - I had to walk a couple of times and just can't help thinking 'if only.'
Oh well, I'll just have to do another one, eh. I raised Β£600 for Barnado's too, which is a charity close to my family's heart. That takes a lot of the disappointment away.
I do think however I would have gone sub 5hrs if there'd have been enough energy gels/shotbloks for everyone. There was nothing between 10 miles and 23 miles (both approx - can't really remember). I had taken nothing of my own (a mistake in hindsight) so this obvioulsy impacted on me.
Couldn't believe the conditions - one of the guys I was talking to said he'd done over 500 races and yesterday was the worst conditions he'd ever ran in. Was a total mudbath in parts. The horizontal persisting rain, freezing windchill and hail stones made iy extremely challeging.