Julie Burnage:

A LAUNCESTON runner has conquered the London Marathon in aid of mental health charity MIND.

Julie Burnage completed the world famous 26.2-mile course in 5:07:45.

Reflecting on her achievement, Julie said: “This was one of the toughest challenges I have ever taken part in. The weather was great, but it took a lot of mental strength as well as physical pain to get across the finish line. Most of all I would like to thank everyone who supported me and donated to my chosen charity, MIND. I especially want to thank all the customers and staff at Specsavers Launceston for their kind donations and support.”

Samantha Dean, store director at Launceston, says: ‘We are so proud of Julie and what she’s achieved. It’s so important to raise awareness of mental health, and we know that it has taken months of training in all-weather, pounding the streets of Launceston to run this race.”

Emma Baker:

EMMA Baker smashed her personal best by a phenomenal 11 minutes at the London Marathon.

The Launceston Road Runner, who was competing in her fifth edition of the world-famous race, finished the gruelling 26.2-mile course in three hours, 11 minutes and 22 seconds, over eight minutes faster than her target.

As a result of finishing the Edinburgh Half Marathon last year in 90 minutes, Emma qualified as a ‘Championship Runner’ meaning for the first time she wasn’t raising money for charity.

She said: “It went really well, much better than I thought. I’m training to be a midwife so placement hours include both day and night shifts of 12 hours, so my training was really hard to manage, but it went really well.

“I managed to do it in three hours, 11 minutes and 22 seconds, which was much better than expected. My target was a sub-3.20, but I went out and thought I’m just going to go for it, and if I blow up, I blow up.”

Although Emma said training was different, she still managed to fit in an incredible amount.

She said: “I found that going running five times a week works for me, but absolutely the most crucial run is your long run at the end of the week. You’ve just got to build up and drop off each week. I did a mix of interval training, speed work and fartlek training.

“The miles you do each week increases and the maximum was 60 and eventually that drops off a couple of weeks before.”

Emma believes that anyone contemplating whether to apply should go for it, and issued some advice.

She said: ““The first time is absolutely incredible, I wish I could rewind back to it, but it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done. I think it should be on everyone’s bucketlist.

“The one thing I’d say is that you don’t have to have fancy training plans. I wrote my plan myself and stuck to it. It doesn’t cost lots of money to run a marathon, you just need determination and to follow your plan and be flexible with it. You can still have a life as well.”

Emma also had praise for her mum.

She said: “I’d like to thank my mum. She came out and cycled with me on my long runs and it really helps.”