Strenua's World

Whilst some of us found the temperatures a little warm for Sunday’s Virgin London Marathon, the weather was perfect for the elite races with Emmanuel Mutai setting a new course record of 2:04:40. But for the club and fun runners apart from improving our own personal bests, we also like to see how we compare against the celebrity runners.

The fast celebrity this year was Olympic medal winning cyclist Christ Newton racing his first marathon in 2:58:52. Fastest non-sporting celebrity was Tom Audenshaw, otherwise known as Bob Hope in Emmerdale, who was joined this year by a number of fellow cast members running for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research.

Fastest female honour went to Nell McAndrew who  improved her best again with an impressive finish in 3:08:25, whilst Jamie Baulch was the victor in a friendly contest over former 400m rival Iwan Thomas,

Below are the finishing times of celebrities in the 2011 Virgin London Marathon. Clicking on their name takes you to the London Marathon result site where you can see the runners split times and a link to the Marathonfoto.com site to see race photos of the celebrity.

‘Not Known’ are celebrities listed as running in the official marathon press release but I couldn’t find their time. This could be because they didn’t run, didn’t finish or the registered under a different name than they are famous for. If you know any pseudonyms let me know and I’ll update the table.

Garmin have announced the launch of the Forerunner 610 which comes with a new weather proof touchscreen, but after the frustrating experiences of using the Forerunner 405 should I delay in risking my hard earned cash.

Dear Mr and Mrs Dog Walker, Thank you for allowing your lovely dog to join in my training run this week. I felt it very beneficial to have the extra weight, as your beloved fur ball jumped up to my hips and sunk her teeth into my jacket, biting down as I tried to force her off, whilst you just watched.

Want to know which celebrities to look out for running the 2011 Virgin London Marathon and when to expect to see them. Check out our run down with their predicted finishing times and the charities they are running for.

Most of us long distance runners do not come with an ample bosom but we still need to wear specific sports bra to prevent damage to the breast tissue. I tested the Anita Active extreme control sports bra during two 20 mile races to see how it copes with long distances, moisture and heart rate monitors.

The standard entry for this year’s Kilomathon race from Derby to Nottingham is £45 equal to a whopping £2.76 mile. Although promoted as a London Marathon training race to reduce the fee to £5 you need to fund raise £260, on top of the £1,500 plus many runners are raising to run London. With the popularity of the general public participating in challenging sporting events and the reduction of people giving to charities is this the start of companies seeing runners as an easy target for raising money through sponsorship and increased entry fees.

It’s acknowledged that people are more motivated to stick to a diet or exercise plan if they are part of a group than by trying to do it alone, but which weight loss program is best for you? Before you sign up to a program you have to consider how it will fit in to your lifestyle. Here have highlighted a few of the most popular UK weight loss programs to help you decide.

We review the latest album from the Ministry of Sound, Running Trax 2. 3 CD’s of energetic tracks to motivate you towards fitness from the sofa to the race start line.