More than 35,000 finish the 2009 Flora London Marathon sponsored by Flora on 26.04.2009.

Sir Chris Hoy had set 35,747 on their way from Greenwich this morning, the second largest field in London Marathon history. 36,156 had registered to run by close of play on Saturday from nearly 50,000 accepted applications.
At the end of 26.2 miles it was the Olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru who led them home, the Kenyan winning the fastest men's elite race since the London Marathon started in 1981. (Original of the marothon statistics is on Flora London Marathon)
Wanjiru crossed the line in a course record of 2:05:10 with Tsegaye Kebede of Ethiopia second in 2:05:20 and Jaouad Gharib of Morocco third in 2:05:27 – the second time in two years that three men have run quicker than 2 hours 6 minutes.
Germany's Irina Mikitenko defended her title to win the elite women's race in 2:22:11 while Mara Yamauchi gave more than 750,000 spectators cause to cheer as the Briton finished second in 2:23:12, breaking her personal best by nearly two minutes. Russia's Liliya Shobukhova was third on her marathon debut, clocking 2:24:24.
Australian Kurt Fearnley beat Britain's David Weir in a sprint finish to win the men's wheelchair race in a course record of 1:28:56, while American Amanda McGrory took the women's wheelchair title in 1:50:39 just ahead of last year's champion Sandra Graf of Switzerland.
Among the masses of personal triumphs on a beautiful Spring day, 10 Guinness World Records were broken including the fastest marathon dressed as Santa Claus (2:55:50 by Paul Simons), the fastest marathon dressed as a vegetable (3:34:55 by Robert Prothero) and the fastest fruit (4:19:37 by Thomas Day).
There were also records for the fastest leprechaun (4:22:08 by Jack Lyons), the fastest animal (3:42:27 by Alastair Martin) and the fastest cartoon character (3:36:07 by Darren Stone).
As usual, many turned out in fancy dress and many thousands more ran to raise money for hundreds of charities. One running couple were married en route – at St Bride's Church in Fleet Street – while celebrities Katie Price and Peter Andre kept the photographers waiting as they jogged in seven hours and 11 minutes after the starting gun was fired at 9.45 this morning.
6038 runners received medical attention during the day (as did 120 members of public around the course), 35 were taken to hospital and 25 were admitted.
See some of my favorite marothon photos in Events photo gallery.

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