Three marathons: A week everyone won't forget

Yes its another blog post about marathons hopefully it won't be as generic as all the others you find online, however this week hasn't exactly been the most normal for the marathon community. Three marathons within seven days of each all with varying degrees of history, prestige and stories. I had a different viewing perspective on all three starting with running my 4th Brighton Marathon.
Despite once again lining up in Preston Park with very limited training miles in my legs, I set off looking for a finishing time around 4 and a half hours for the Brighton Marathon. Which was achieved with a finishing time of 4:35, but would have surely been slower of it wasn't for the fantastic support around the entire route! Every year the Brighton marathon strives to gets bigger and better, you would be hard pushed to argue that they don't succeed. With channel 4 showing highlights of this years race too, the whole nation was able to see what a spectacle the prequel to London is. I do believe that Brighton is only second to London in terms of the running cities in England now.
The day after unfortunately came, where lucky I was only hobbling round my house whilst completing my essay for university/trying to find a link online to watch the Boston marathon. Ultimately it proved unsuccessful and succumbed to highlights online later on that night, then it happened. Three lives lost, 100's more injured to the act of terrorism. From visiting Boston in 2010 I could tell how the city not only had a love of running, but a love of sport as well. For an act like this to be carried out on the running community was perhaps the strangest thing to comprehend. Boston will recover, as a city and a race but there will always be a touch of sadness each year it comes round remembering those who are not able to be there.
The following Sunday- the London Marathon, tighter security, 40% more police lining the route yet still the buzz of London 2012 in the air.
As me and my Dad headed to start line to help volunteer at the 'good for age' start, the positivity in the air was evident- London and its runners weren't afraid of terrorism and would not let it stop them competing or supporting one of the greatest sporting events in the British calendar. Trying to find a gap by the side of the route was near on impossible, thankfully next year it'll be me on the other side of the barrier not trying to look out for 1 person in 35,000 runners.
Hopefully next year with the task of potentially running a Brighton-London double within a week, I'll have the mileage within my legs to put down a respectable time.

It would be strange to miss 2014 out