At the 2019 Vitality London 10000 run we had four runners who were able to run, and three of those were running in the first and fastest wave, the fourth running in the second wave.

Steve, Eric, James and Matthew were all looking forward to the run as they are keen runners and it helps to have the buzz of a big event like this to help you along. There were 23,500 runners so the crowds were enormous, but the event was well organised and the runners flowed steadily into the various start areas. Sir Mo Farah led off at the start of the race, and stayed at the front the whole way round.

 

In due course the NLT runners started to appear, although it was very hard to spot them amongst the many thousands of runners. They 

acknowledged a cheer, and they all had determination and grit written on their faces. The only way to catch them on camera was to video the runners as they went by and then try and pick out their faces from the crowd, so these pictures are all action shots taken from a video stream. Matthew, being taller, was

easier to see and gave a big grin as he ran by. Steve was running next to the barrier and managed a little grin.

I couldn’t spot James, but having seen the others off to a good start, I dashed across St James’ Park to intercept the front runners  on their way back and was in time to see Sir Mo leading the pack by a good margin about a half mile from the finish.

He was running at an incredibly fast rate – seemingly effortlessly – with a very smooth stride. The second runner was not very far behind but

looked more strained and was clearly working very hard to stay in sight of Mo. NLT’s first runner was James who finished with a very good time of about 35 minutes. Matthew came next with a little over 38 minutes, followed by Eric at around 40 minutes, and Steve at about 50 minutes. All were pleased with their times and really enjoyed the event and would love to run again next year. NLT is so grateful for these four heroes willing to raise funds for NLT and also for Trustee Martin Davies and Alex who were keen to run but unable to make it on the day. Thank you also to all those who sponsored the runners and supported the work of NLT, we are so grateful. If you meant to sponsor them but never quite got round to it, there is still opportunity to donate through our page on Give.net.

If you like running and would like to join us next year, please get in touch on info@nlt.org.uk

You can support our vitality runners with a donation by clicking HERE