Sadly I wasn't savaged by a wild badger and aliens completely failed to abduct me so I finally had to go and do it...
It turns out I was not the only person not looking forward to today and there were several drop outs so at least I came did it! The run wasn't as agonising as I expected it would be and because I simply would not be rushed and it was not as painful as I had expected either, considering over the last 2 months I had maybe 2 or 3 times run over a couple of miles or so to return home to go 'again tomorrow instead', so I think that even though I made everybody else wait about half an hour or so, that my finishing in under 2 hours in the end wasn't bad!