On Sunday evening in the heavy rain Falmouth resident Lesley Garside completed the London Marathon - with a difference.

Lesley speed walked 26.2 miles from Lizard Village to her local pub in Falmouth The Seaview Inn.

She set off from the village at 10:30am and arrived in Falmouth around 4:30pm.

Lesley was due to take part in the London Marathon back in April.

However, under coronavirus restrictions, the organisers decided to make it a virtual event.

Lesley told Nub News:

"It was good, the weather was less than generous to me. The course I knew was going to be hilly and it certainly was, not flat like the London course. I had lots of different people coming to join me and cheer me on.

"Not many people got to do the marathon and experience camels, when I was doing the route via The Lizard I thought I could stop in via the camel farm and get a photo taken.

"I had my brother and his best friend on their bikes which made me feel quite safe because there is quite a lot of traffic on these back lanes and cars go quite fast so I don't know how comfortable I would have felt without that.

"I finished up at The Seaview Inn, had a couple of pints and got a taxi home."

All money raised will be going to the Anthony Nolan charity - an organisation that specialises in enabling people with blood cancer to survive by finding them stem cell donors.

So far she has raised over £6,000.

Lesley continued:

"All entrants in 2020 have been allowed to enter either October 2021, April 2022 or April 2023. I have expressed a preference to do it again in 2022 and that again will be for Anthony Nolan, it is an amazing charity but I feel for them because like many charities they are being impacted by covid and the inability to raise money.

"I am really pleased because I targeted £5,000 and I am just under £6,300, people have been really generous."

You can make a donation here.

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