As you may know, one of our own team members ran the London Marathon this year.

Massage Therapist Hayley Weston took it on as a personal challenge and also to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital. Her original goal was to come in under 4 hours and raise £2,000 for the charity. She ended up smashing her goals – raising almost £2,500 and coming in at a brilliant 3 hours and 36 minutes.

Having lived in London before moving to Australia, one of Hayley’s ambitions has always been to run the London Marathon – despite never having run a marathon before. Naturally sporty, Hayley’s fitness was already established, so in preparation for the marathon she focused her training on her big goal – getting in under 4 hours and enjoying it.

Hayley loved every minute of her marathon – even her training. She finds running an outlet, a way to clear her mind, so having a reason to get out there and train felt great!

But she wasn’t the only one taking on a Marathon recently. One of our regular patients, and avid runner, David, ran the Manchester Marathon. We have blogged about David’s running exploits before and you can read all about them here. David first tackled the London Marathon in 2008, with a time of 4 hours 25 minutes. This year, he came in with his third best ever time of 3 hours, 48 minutes and 18 seconds, coming in the top 25% of approximately 12,000 runners. Which just goes to show that with time and dedication to your practice, you can improve hugely.

While David usually runs marathons in foreign countries – an excellent way to travel and a great incentive to keep you running regularly – it’s handy to run on home turf once in a while. But his eye is already on his autumn challenge…! He plans to continue his regular visits to Alan Burke to ensure he stays running fit and injury free.