17 April 2015

Pack the plasters and Deep Heat, Costain has entered a team to run in this year’s London Marathon to raise money for the 150 *Challenge.

The event on April 26 is the third largest running event in the UK and attracts nearly 40,000 amateur athletes, fun runners and elite sportsman from all over the country.

The 11 strong team** is headed by Darren James, Managing Director for Infrastructure, who is running his second London Marathon.

“The London Marathon is one of the UK’s biggest sporting highlights of the year, and for many runners it’s the biggest physical challenge they will face in their lifetime. Having run in the 1997 London Marathon, I thought that challenge was well behind me, but the 150 Challenge has stimulated a need for me to do it again,” said Darren.

With spectators standing 10 to 15 people deep, the runners will be cheered on by nearly 700,000 spectators along the 26.2 mile route, which begins in Greenwich in South East London and passes many of London's most famous landmarks, before finishing on The Mall.

First-timer Caroline MacPhee, an Office Manager on the Heysham M6 Link Project near Lancaster, said she applied to enter the London Marathon on a number of occasions but lost out in the ballot, so when the opportunity arose to join Costain’s 150 Challenge team, she jumped at it.

From the moment she received her place, Caroline set herself a goal of what she wanted to achieve in her training and how many miles she needed to run each week.

“Running a marathon has always been on my bucket list and the London Marathon is such a fantastic event, particularly in terms of its camaraderie, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to be a part of,” said Caroline.

Graham Keegan, working at the Eight2O Alliance, a seven-strong group of companies working to deliver Thames Waters’ business plan, is also a first time marathon runner and has always wanted to run the London Marathon. This year he is fulfilling a long-held ambition as well as raising money for a worthwhile cause, Costain’s Charitable Foundation.

“Every year, every time I heard the London Marathon music on television, I said to myself ‘next year I’m going to do it’ but I never got around to it, but this year I am,” said Graham.

Juggling the demands of training with long hours working, often on the road, is tough, particularly during the cold winter months.

“The last thing you want to do is go for a run after getting in late from work, but there’s no substitution for hard training. Wherever I am, I always try to put in a long run at the weekend, pounding the streets of Maidenhead, combined with a few hours on the running machine in the evenings,” said Graham.

*The Challenge, which will commemorate Costain’s 150th anniversary, involves raising £1million in 2015 for the Costain Charitable Foundation’s four chosen charities – the British Heart Foundation, Macmillan Cancer Support, youth charity The Prince’s Trust and Samaritans.

**Costain’s London Marathon team is: Darren James; Caroline MacPhee; Graham Sugrue; Graham Keegan; Lee Davies; Frances Guittap; Billy Welch; Michael Harper; Brian Mackay; Phil Whitney; Andrew Ayres.

 

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