UPDATED 15TH APRIL 2008

Well, I made it across the finishing line in 4hours and 20minutes.  It was an absolutely fantastic day and I now have a great sense of achievement and all the hours of training now seem worthwhile.

I'm sure that whoever measures the course made a mistake as after 15 miles, the mile markers seemed to get further and further apart and I'd like to find the person who built the 'wall' at the 22 mile mark!  This took some getting across but after a sip of water and a brief stroll I found the energy to speed through the last 4 miles.

I had great support from family and friends cheering me on my way so special thanks to my wife Sarah, Dad, my brother Andrew(great pics), Joanne, Sue, Rob and Tracy and of course our Mum's back at home who were doing the baby sitting - I think running was the easier option!

So I've achieved a personal ambition of running a marathon and done it on the largest stage, I've raised over £4000 for a great cause and have a daughter who has survived heart surgery, who will now be bored for many years to come with tales of her Dad's epic run - it doesn't get much better than this!

Ian

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Thank you for visiting my fundraising page.

I thought you would all prefer to see a picture of Niamh, the reason for my taking this crazy decision to run the London Marathon, as opposed to me in my running gear - although this can be arranged if anyone is interested...!?!

I go through the pain of running (walking, hobbling, crawling...) the 26.2 miles on 13th April, exactly one week before the first anniversary of Niamh's emergency open heart surgery which was just in time to save her life.  At the time she was only 7 weeks old - thankfully a true little fighter!

My Dad and father in-law have also suffered from heart attacks requiring heart surgery so what better way to celebrate than raise money for such a worthy cause - we are all definately the lucky ones.

Please give what ever you can so the BHF can continue their excellent work and enable them to help other families affected in a similar way to us, so please sponsor me now  - a little goes a long way...

Many thanks for your support.