Page 132 of The Bad Mother's Diary

Then Mum, Dad, Brandi and I watchedChariots of Fire.

I had tears in my eyes at the end of the movie.

I will do this! I will finish! Even if it snows tomorrow.

I will make Daisy proud.

Saturday December 12th

MARATHON DAY!

Woke up at 5am feeling really nervous.

Annoyed, because then I couldn’t get back to sleep.

Daisy woke up at 6am.

It was bloody cold.

Frost on the ground.

I didn’t bother moaning because I knew Dad would start telling me about ‘frost inside the windowpanes’ and ‘proper winters’ when he was a kid.

When he was little, they had one outside toilet that froze over in winter. Apparently it was very important not to poo directly on the ice. You had to pee first to defrost it.

Had a bottle of Lucozade for breakfast and three strawberry energy bars.

Ended up completely wired, jiggling on the spot and telling Daisy I was going to win the marathon.

When I said bye, I got all teary and weirdly hormonal.

Like I was going away to war or something.

Mum told me she had a bag of pork pies ready for the halfway mark.

I told her it was a sporting event, not a 1970s wedding.

She said, ‘Scotch eggs then?’

Dad was all dressed up in his 1980s marathon gear, ready to cheer me on. String vest, royal blue shorts with rainbows around the pockets and his London Marathon medal.

He ran the London Marathon in 1986 in just under four hours. His time would have been better, but he stopped to take photographs of all the London landmarks.

I asked him if he’d be cold in just shorts, but he insisted this was ‘all too exciting’ to worry about the temperature.

At the start line there was an awesome atmosphere. Just awesome.

Huge holly wreathes hung over the twisty tinsel start line.

Loads of people were in costumes – mainly Christmas themed. There were thousands of Father Christmases (which is really going to confuse the kids) and various elves, snowmen etc.

Everyone was smiling and shivering. And sort of secretly pushing forward and trying to get in the best position.

You could tell half the runners were hyped up on glucose. One guy dressed as a giant snowman was so twitchy he started accusing people of ‘invading his area’ and bumping them with his big padded stomach.

I kept thinking about Alex.

Stupid. In a crowd of thousands. And anyway, I knew he’d be right near the front with the decent runners.

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