Four friends have decided to take on one of capital’s toughest sporting challenges this year and tackle the London marathon together.

The quartet of runners will be participating in the 26.2m race on Sunday, April 22, to raise money for a very special charity – Cardiac Risk in the Young (Cry).

Sally Woodward Gentle, Lyndon Williams, Michael Glazebrook and Andrew Brown, all of Kew, decided to run the marathon to help raise awareness of the charity which screens young people in the hope of preventing early and unexpected deaths among athletes and schoolchildren.

Mr Glazebrook said that he and the rest of the team had become involved with Cry through a fellow runner who they regularly did park runs with.

He said: “Our friend Bill Neely is a reporter with ITN and he’s a patron with Cry, we know him through park runs in Richmond so chatted to him and thought it would be nice to run for the charity.”

The team of regular runners are aiming to raise more than £7,000 and draw attention to the fact there are many undiagnosed heart defects, with a dozen fit and healthy teenagers and young dying from these conditions in the UK every week.

And despite suffering aching hips, torn hamstrings and even black toenails in training, the team maintain it has all been worth it. Mr Glazebrook, who is the only one who has run a marathon before – having raced in Iceland, said training with friends had made the dedication to training in cold conditions and early starts much easier.

He said: “Training started at the beginning of December and has gradually built up and up and up.

“It [training] takes hours to do on your own and can be just really demoralising sometimes... but doing it as a team is just great because if you have someone who is not in the mood the others keep them going.”

To sponsor the fit foursome visit uk.virginmoneygiving.com/lyndonwilliams.