40 Heathsiders (14 women and 26 men) finished the 2007 London Marathon, including several first timers. Ours was again one of the largest training groups in North London and our finishing times ranged from 2:42:53 to three hours longer on a very hot day.

Favourite training routes this year, apart from the usual club runs, covered the northern part of the newly opened Capital Ring (a North & South Circular for runners), the Thames towpath as far as Richmond Park, towpaths alongside the Regents and Grand Union canals and the Lee Valley from Hackney up towards Hertford.

The year's highlight was definitely the women's team where Angela Howe, Anna Critchlow and Angela Evans won UKA and AAA gold medals for the UK's leading women's team. Individually, Julian Ferraro's personal best of 2:42:53 was definitely the pick of the runs, with personal best times posted by a number of other runners. The target times for the club's top runners are Piet Jacobs' and Angela Howe's club records of, respectively 2:17:06 (set in Eindhoven in 2004) and 2:49:36 (set in San Sebastian in 2006). We averaged an impressive 3hrs and 47mins on race day and Antonia Kanczula achieved the mythical negative split.

Of course London isn't our only race. In the last couple of years Heathsiders also ran Edinburgh, Luton, Boston, Las Vegas, Rotterdam, Loch Ness, New York, Seville, San Sebastian, Helsinki, Abingdon, Dublin, Chicago, Paris, Halstead, Isle of Wight, Cardiff, Belfast, Bungay and the Faroe Islands, to name but a few.