Congratulations to you all! Despite the cold and wet weather conditions, 114 runners, including retired jockey Richard Dunwoody, took to the streets of London on Sunday 18th April to run for Spinal Research in the Flora London Marathon.
All our runners did a fantastic job and it was great to see so many as they passed us between mile 19 and 20. Just some of the runners spotted included Tim Halls and Simon Stevenson, who both stopped to say “hi” and grab an energy boosting banana, while Garrick Reid and Mychelle Featherstone took a short break to have a free massage.
Also spotted on their way to the finish line were Mirren Mandalia, John Bensusan and Steve Blundell, Bridget Huggett, Paul Ogden, John Hudson, and Helen Curtin - who came all the way from New Zealand to take part for us.
Andy Benton and Julie Ward-Rotherham completed in 4 hours 28 and 4 hours 53 respectively, both victorious in beating their times for 2003 (Julie managed a superb 40 minutes faster!).
Our very own celebrity runner Richard Dunwoody zoomed past us and managed an incredible time of 3 hours and 17 minutes, coming in second place in the celebrity race covered by the BBC.
Thanks to all who joined us to support the runners at the Spinal Research cheering party. Everyone got very soggy very quickly, but continued shouting encouragement and handing out bananas right until the very end. The Cox Green School Jazz Orchestra made the day much brighter with their renditions of some very upbeat tunes and hopefully it helped anyone flagging to pick up their pace as they passed!
Well done to everyone who took part on our behalf - you all took on an incredible challenge for us and we hope you enjoyed the experience!
Flora London Marathon Pre-race party – Saturday 17th April 2004
It was great to see such a number of runners who came along to the pre-marathon party on the Saturday and to finally be able to put faces to names!
The lunch-time get together was a great opportunity for everyone to meet, to hear some top tips from our celebrity runner Richard Dunwoody and to get more of an insight into the work we do from one of our Researchers, Paul Hubbard.
