Whilst it would have been nice for Carmen to have joined me on this trip, this was going to be my first solo trip since I last did an Impact Marathons race: Jordan 2022. I’d spent the weekend in London which meant when the time came, I’d just need an Uber to London Heathrow Terminal 4, and could leave my car with Carmen.

The Uber driver arrived early, and traffic wasn’t too bad, so got to the airport very early. The drop off desk for the flight wasn’t even listed yet, but I figured it out, and dropped my bag. As it was a soft bag they made me take it to the oversized bag desk after, even though it’s actually smaller than most suitcases.

Security was nice and quick with the new scanners, not needing to empty my backpack, and was on the other side just twenty minutes after arriving in the airport. I bought some lunch for tomorrow from Boots, knowing I could have it this evening if there was no evening meal on the flight. It looked like there would be some food at some point, and usually any food served would be shortly after take-off, but felt it could just as easily be breakfast.

I then went to Pret to get an almond croissant for breakfast tomorrow, and a cinnamon whirl and apple to keep me going. The pastry was unfortunately stale, and could have been used as a frisbee, with the caveat it could probably have caused some damage.

This was a flight I’d been very unsure about for the last month, since I stumbled across reviews of the airline whilst trying to find out if food is served during the flight. On just one site, people reported that flight times are often changed at short notice, or cancelled, and there can be issues with luggage too. I’d been checking the flight trackers for this though, and I’d not seen any issues in the time since I’d read the reviews. It seemed unlikely there’d be issues, and from what I could tell, the issues reported seemed to be flights either to or from Nairobi.

Whilst I was sitting at the gate, Toi, who I’d met in Jordan, spotted me and asked if I wanted to join the others for food. Andy, and Nick B who I’d met in Jordan as well were on this flight too, as well as four other Impact runners I’d not yet met. I’d not long eaten though, and was going to phone home, so politely declined.

Once on the flight and in the air, they let us know they’d be serving food soon, and then breakfast two hours before landing. I watched Creed III whilst I waited for food, with the intention of attempting to sleep as soon as the meal service was done. I’d got a row of two seats to myself so I decided rather than trying to use the trtl neck pillow, I’d attempt to lay down, and maybe, just maybe, I could get some actual sleep for once.