A weekly newspaper’s charity is almost £2,000 better off thanks to a marathon effort by Barking and Dagenham Recorder reporter Andrew Golder, who completed the London Marathon – and wrote about it afterwards.
The paper is running a joint Building For Life campaign with the Ilford Recorder to build a new cancer unit at King George Hospital, Goodmayes, and the running total stands at £65,877.

To say this year’s race was fun, despite the continual worry of what damage you would find once you got your running shoes off, would be a massive understatement.

The crowds were fantastic – I wouldn’t have got round without them – and the runners closed ranks in fine fashion once we all realised it was at least 15 degrees too hot to run all the way round the course.

We assembled at Greenwich Park for 9.45am where the sun started to beam down on us – who said it would overcast?

It took 20 minutes to get out of the park and after avoiding ostriches, rhinos, big telephones and a big purple bowler hat we sauntered off down Charlton Park Road through cheering crowds and towards Woolwich Dockyard.

And so it went on with music blaring out from bands and pubs, frequent water stops and one church’s bell ringers playing the Chariots of Fire song for us as we ran past.

After an hour we’d reached the Cutty Sark, and we were told Paula Ratcliffe had won in a world record time – hooray, good for her – we still had 20 and a bit miles still to go.

Massive crowds greeted us at 13 miles (Tower Bridge) and gave us a big boost but despite taking 10 minutes off my best time for half marathon distance (2 hours exactly) the sun, ideal for spectators was really taking its toll on the runners.

After 14 miles and feeling pretty rough, I spotted my mate Russell and we decided to walk for a bit. From then on we decided to alternate walking a mile then running one.

Towards the end we were getting our second, or was it fifth, wind. Then it was down the Embankment, thronged with walking ‘runners’ and thousands of people, and into The Mall where we had decided to do a sprint finish.

We saw the line and went for it, a great roar went up from the crowd as they saw two mad men running hell for leather down the road, then we realised the sign we were sprinting for was the 800 metres to go. Never mind.

Eventually we got in sight of the finish and sprinted – a little slower this time, finally crossing the line in 5hrs 38min 5s. I had sore feet, my hip ached like mad and I was convinced my toenails were on the verge of falling out but I’d made it.

In the end I had no long term ill effects except a bit of soreness and I raised nearly £2,000 for Macmillan Cancer Relief, and the maddest thing of all, despite it all, I think I’ll have another go next year.

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