The London Marathon

Sunday was the first cloudy (and occasionally rainy) day here in weeks -- probably perfect weather for the runners in the London Marathon. We "participated" by standing at mile marker 23 and cheering on friends -- and everyone else running! There were more than 37,000 runners. We only spotted one of the people we knew who were racing, but we did see elite athletes: regular athletes: runners in "fancy dress"/costumes: famous people (below on the left is a smiling Princess Beatrice, daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson): and famous people in fancy dress/costumes (this is Sir Richard Branson, founder & CEO of Virgin, and a very famous person here in the UK): Not only was Princess Beatrice the first royal to ever complete the London Marathon, she and her friends set a new world record for the largest number of people to complete a marathon while tied together (there were 34 of them connected for the entire race by bungee cords.) This event is said to be the largest single fund-raising event in the world -- the non-elite athletes all run in support of charities. Last year the runners raised more than $75M. Well done by all!