LAST weekend saw over 36,000 people pound the streets of the capital for this year’s London Marathon, and the donations are still coming.

For Twyford man, Nick Chadwick, of St Marys Terrace, it was his first, and has kicked off the ‘marathon bug’.

The 44-year-old raised £1,500 for Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, after his mother Jacqueline received a life-saving live liver transplant from his brother Andrew there three years ago.

He said: “I completed it in five hours and 30 minutes. The crowd was amazing and towards the end I think if it wasn’t for them I would have failed. I have registered for the Bournemouth marathon off the back of it.”

Kings Worthy Football Club treasurer, James Marshall, also saw success after doubling his £1,000 target for DEBRA, a national charity that work on behalf of people with the genetic skin blistering condition Epidermolysis Bullosa.

The 42-year-old, of Lovedon Lane, completed the mammoth challenge in four hours and 18 minutes.

“I managed to survive! I am so very pleased - it’s a terrific thing to do.”

Matthew Southey, 41, of Riverside Gardens, Romsey, weighed in at twenty stone before his training, and with Crohn’s disease and asthma was an unlikely candidate.

“It was a lot harder than I thought it would be,” he said. “I got to about 13 miles and was on target for five hours, but then Lucozade were handing out carbohydrate gels – and it turns out Crohn’s disease hates carbohydrate gels!

“It was the worst moment of my life, I was retching so hard that I was on my knees, but I managed to get back up and on my way.” He has raised just under £4,000 for homelessness charity Trinity Winchester, and completed the 26.2 miles in six hours and 30 minutes.

He wasn’t the only one that found it a challenge - retired Perins School geography teacher, Michael Clarke, finished in four hours 58 minutes, to raise funds to help build a bridge in Ghana.

“It was quite painful,” he said.

“I just about managed to get round. I have raised £1,200, but I’m hoping for £1,500 in the end.”

Born and raised Wintonian Keith Miller ran for Macmillan Cancer Support – raising £2800 in total.

He paid tribute to Rob Berry who tragically died in hospital after the race.

“He is, and always will be, the full and complete definition of a hero,” he said.

“As a fellow runner that day I salute him and it was an honour to be in the same race in which he made the ultimate sacrifice to do good for others.”