Update: the final total raised by Cherry Lodge’s 2023 Marathon runners was in excess of £15,000 – a great achievement! Thank you everyone.
The tcs 2023 London Marathon was held on Sunday, 23rd April, back at its traditional time of year but on what turned out to be a far from Spring-like day. More than 48,000 runners – elite racers, ballot winners and charity representatives – defied wet conditions to make this year’s London Marathon the biggest ever in this iconic event’s history.
Cherry Lodge Cancer Care had eight runners taking part and we are delighted to announce that all of them successfully completed the course. We send them our hearty congratulations and a huge thank you! Money raised through sponsorship will make a big difference to Cherry Lodge, helping us continue to provide our much needed cancer information and support services completely free of charge. Thank you, too, to everyone who has made a donation so far (with an interim total before GiftAid of £11,730 on 25th April). Note also that there is still plenty of time for other people to show their support – clicking on the names in blue in the report below will take you to the runners’ fundraising pages, where you can also read their back stories.
We are aiming to include photos and snippets of information about all our runners and hope to be able to fill in a few gaps over the next few days. Please get in touch with Tina if you have anything to add. Three of our runners – Maja, Vass and Sam – attended a small reception at the Cherry Lodge centre on Monday 24th April. Click here to read more about them.
Different Marathon runners have different ambitions. For some the finish time is the driving force. For others, the aim is just to finish the 26.2 mile course – which is no mean feat, even for the very fit and physically gifted. Sometimes performances are achieved despite carrying injuries picked up during training or on the day. Whatever our runners’ stories, we congratulate and thank them all. Most were running with family members in mind, wanting to show their support for Cherry Lodge’s work.
The fastest of our runners this year was Chris Travis, whose ambition was to get an even better time than he did when he last ran the Marathon for Cherry Lodge in 2021. His aim for 2023 was to finish in under 3 hours – and he succeeded, achieving a fantastic 2hr 59min (12 minutes faster than last time). Next in, with a time of 3hr 21min, was Vass Mandeville, who, with his lifelong friend and running mate Sam Abrahams had completed the Manchester full marathon just one week before. Sam’s London finish time of 4hr 22min is particularly noteworthy as it was achieved despite a knee injury picked up at Manchester.
Three other CL runners achieved very impressive times in the 4-5 hour bracket: Josh Hockney finishing in 4hr 10min, Bobby Pratt (son of Giles Pratt a previous CL marathon runner) who finished in 4hr 29min, and Daniel Lenihan (a London Marathon ballot winner and nephew of Christine Halloran, a former CL trustee) with a finishing time of 4hr 44min.
This year CL had only one female runner: Maja Zor who chose to support our charity after winning a London Marathon ballot place. This was her first marathon and her time of 5hr 17min was a great achievement for a 41-year-old mother of young children. As well child care she also had to fit in training around the demands of a full time job.
Finally, we congratulate Kyri Papasavva, not only on completing the London Marathon in 5hr 58min but also on his very recent marriage! Kyri’s honeymoon has had to be delayed as he was absolutely determined to take part this year. Kyri had been disappointed in the past, having trained to take part for CL in the London Marathon scheduled for April 2020 but cancelled due to Covid. Money raised for us by Kyri in 2020 was gratefully received and his London Marathon place was deferred until this year. He can be seen in the photograph below wearing two London Classics medals, working towards the prestigious trio awarded for completing the RideLondon 100-mile cycling sportive; The Swim Serpentine two-mile swim, and the London Marathon.
Click on the small images below to see larger complete photographs; then click on the arrows to move from photo to photo,
