Marathon heroes raise £80,000 for Norwood

Click here to see more photos from the Marathon.

Norwood’s 24 runners ran the 26.2 miles of the Flora London Marathon 2009 in the glorious sunshine yesterday, raising £80,000 for the leading children and families charity. The charity had the largest number of runners of all the Jewish community charities taking part in the event and international participants included a cowgirl who had flown over from Wyoming to take part, as well as 65 year-old power-walking great-grandmother from Edgware, Flora Frank.

Luke Playford and Richie Conway, from Essex who work for Galliard homes, ran together and completed their marathons in less than four hours. Richie said, “The support was amazing and people were brilliant. I’ve heard some of the adults with learning disabilities talk about the jobs that they do and how they have been supported to find work by Norwood. What the Charity does is amazing, so we’re very happy to support them.”

Daniel Abrahams, former Co-chair of Young Norwood, ran his first marathon and was met by his wife and his daughter of fifteen months, who was wearing a “My Daddy Daniel Rocks” T-shirt. Daniel gave his medal to his little girl and said, “I was going for my target of four and a half hours and when I realised it was within reach, I sprinted at the finish. Don’t ask me to do it again!”

The runners were incredibly motivated by their achievement. Nick Myers said, “It was amazing it’s so good to give back to the community and for such a good cause as Norwood. I’d do it all again in the future – there’s still room for improvement.”

Aron Schlagman, another Norwood fundraiser on the YN Lawyers committee, said, “The weather was amazing, the crowd was amazing. I wasn’t sure if I’d trained enough but I decided that I definitely was not going to “hit the wall” – I ran the whole thing and I loved it. But at one point, I did get overtaken by a womble!”

Click here to see more photos from the Marathon.

Flora Frank, completed her 19th marathon and her 13th London Marathon in under 6 hours, Flora has now raised a staggering £150,000 for Norwood. After the marathon she said, “I can still run on the spot, I’ve got no aches, no pains, I’m just so grateful that I can still do this and I’m ready to sign up for my next one.”

Norwood’s Miss Wyoming, Savanna Gelhlausen, who really is a cowgirl from Wyoming, flew over to London to take part in the Marathon this year and said it really was a fantastic experience. Andrea Fraquelli completed the marathon in an impressive 2:55:20 and has only been running for 13 months.

Ian Tate, Norwood’s Head of Challenges, said, “I’d like to thank all our runners for raising a fantastic amount of money that has helped us to continue to support children, adults and families in our Community. Over the years, our runners have shown incredible dedication and commitment, both in terms of their training and their fundraising and they’ve done a fantastic job again this year.”

Click here to see more photos from the Marathon.

Running for Norwood in the London Marathon 2009:
Daniel Abrahams, Lee Bagdady, Cedrik Gallien, Craig Bardsley, Elliot Caplan, Anthony Chapman, Richard Conway, Robert Dagul, Flora Frank, Andrea Fraquelli, Savanna Gehlhausen, Rafi Glass, Lloyd Kafton, Lucie Kullova, Nick Myers, Joseph Nathan, Luke Playford, Ben Roth, Aron Schlagman, Tony Smith, Samantha Tucker, Einat Winter, Andrew Wright.

If you are inspired by reading about this year's runners, why not register your interest for Virgin London Marathon 2010, and if you want to start training, sign up for the Community Fun Run for Norwood.