I've Got This. Apparently

So I set out in London on a marathon yesterday. It seemed to take forever, and it was hard work, but I made it in the end.
No, not THE marathon. Obviously. The marathon journey on public transport across the city to EXCEL, the exhibition site in the back of beyond (east London, actually - ed.) where all the entrants have to pick up their race number, timer token and literally whatever free stuff they can bung in their bag and carry home with them. 
It's basically a device to get you to visit what amounts to the Virgin Money London Marathon 2019 Expo, a manoeuvre which would normally activate me into automatic cynicism mode. But as I walked up from the station, with lots of other excited entrants, and saw the banners with slogans like "You're all amazing" and "Nervous yet?", I couldn't help feeling a little emotional. 
So much so that when I picked up my race number, I actually got a little teary and had to sit down for a little and compose myself. What's that? No, YOU'RE crying because you've just realised there's no going back now and you're actually going to do this amazing thing.

The exhibition itself was the usual melange of marketing, merchandise and photo opps. I resisted the urge to buy anything (though I do seem to have signed up for the opportunity to do yoga in Costa Rica, which is faintly troubling), got my photo with Mo Farah (well, a cardboard cutout of him - the real one was still involved in some beef with his fellow elite athletes about a stolen watch, it seems), and took up the challenge of running at world record marathon pace for 400 metres.
Ever tried doing that? It's harder than it looks. A lot harder. They put you on a huge treadmill, and set you off at a reasonably comfortable pace, before whacking it up to 12.89mph. Phwaaaaaaaahh. My legs started going round like Roadrunner's when Wile E. Coyote's bearing down on him with one of his more fiendishly ingenious Acme contraptions. I had to keep my eyes looking down straight at my feet to make sure I didn't fall over them. After what seemed like about 3 hours, with my legs turning to jelly, the nice young lady in charge of the thing called out "Give Rob a big cheer, folks, he's halfway through". You what?

Look out, Wile E Coyote's coming

Halfway through 400 metres? I thought I'd reached Greenwich at least. Finally it reached the end. I'd done a quarter of a mile at Mo's (well, actually, Eliud Kipchoge's) pace. The idea of going that fast for any longer, let alone 26.2 miles, is literally insane.
Leaving the exhibition, I saw a banner saying "You've made it. You're ready. You've got this". I admired the banner-writer's confidence in me. Really not sure I have got this, unless "this" is a nagging sense of inadequacy and a general sense of impending doom.
Despite that, however, my final preparations for the Big Day are now in full swing. My name has now been successfully ironed on to my running vest. My number is safety-pinned on likewise. And my timing token is, after a great deal of effort and swearing, attached to my left trainer. I've never been able to do this with ease. The little plastic ties they give you never seem long enough, while the instructions with the "helpful" drawings are about as clear as an Ikea manual in Mandarin Chinese. And yet the proper runners always seems to have their timer tokens impeccably secured. I often wonder if in the pre-race preparations, they glance down at my miserable effort and sneer knowingly. 

Someone has faith in me anyway

My carb-loading is in full fettle (do Easter eggs count?). I read a guide called "Five Good Ways To Carb-load", of which number 2 involved eating a lot of beetroot. Err no. Bollocks to beetroot. Number 5, however, proposed putting honey in your tea or coffee, a menu suggestion that I have been enthusiastically carb-loading the bejeesus out of ever since.
I have also been reading a lot of serious guides about How To Run The London Marathon, which perhaps I should have been reading a little earlier. The one thing I have gleaned from all of them is not to go off too fast at the start. No danger of that given my performance on the EXCEL treadmill, you might think, and you're probably right. But actually, I do have a tendency to start too fast for my own good, even if "fast" is pretty much a relative concept in this case. So I will try to keep myself in control.
Most importantly, my sponsorship is now complete. More than complete, in fact. Thanks to the many lovely people who have more confidence in me finishing the damn thing than I do myself, we've raised well over £1000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association - and if you feel like adding to that admirable total, you can at this Justgiving link. A huge thank you to everyone who has.
So I suppose in a way, the banner was right. I have made it. I am ready. And I really have, despite my pessimistic qualms, got this. No matter what happens on Sunday, I've made it through all the training to get to this point, I'm as ready as I'm ever likely to be, and above all, I've got my fund-raising target - got the money to combat the disease that killed my friend. Didn't think I'd manage any of it and yet here we are.
Just the 26.2 miles to knock off now. Piece of cake.