Capital run by magnificent seven

Seven Bungay Black Dog runners managed to obtain entries to this year's London Marathon and, even with the heavy rain and hail showers, all achieved their targets.

The first Bungay runner to complete the course was Ian Taylor in a time of 3hrs 00.10secs finishing in 1,105th place from a field of 35,000 which puts Ian in the top five per cent.

Although Ian missed the three-hour mark by seconds, this time was still five minutes faster than his last marathon and he clocked pbs on the 10k, 10 mile, 13.1 and 20 mile splits, so he was very satisfied.

Richard Dye was another Black Dog to record a pb with an excellent 3-33:32 to finish in 4737th place. Yet another pb was recorded by James Samkin in 4-10:02secs for 11,512th place. The conditions suited James better than last year's warm temperatures as he improved by 50 minutes!

Just behind James was Andrew M Smith who completed the race in 4-18:54.

Andrew had a good race up to 22 miles then the conditions took its toll and he jogged the last few miles but he was pleased with his performance.

Robin Farrar, who at 65+ is enjoying his running, recorded another PB to add to his portfolio. Robin finished in 4-35:27, well in the top half of the finishers.

Being a hardy northerner, he enjoyed the challenging conditions!

Bob Paul, who on limited training hoped to finish in five hours, was very satisfied with his time of 4-37:05.

After the stress of being race director at last week's Bungay Marathon, Bob relished the opportunity just to run without the worry of organising everyone.

The final Black Dog runner to finish was Colin Whale who was running Bungay and London back to back in preparation for the Comrades Race in South Africa, which is 56 miles.

Having achieved his qualifying time for this race at Bungay, Colin could relax and sauntered around in 4-52:46.

Well done to all the Bungay runners for their individual achievements in what was described as, at times, the worst conditions in the race's history.