Warren Stark of Grantham Running Club completes the New York Marathon

Grantham Running Club's Warren Stark defied the odds to take part in the New York City Marathon.

Stark had his appendix out exactly three weeks before crossing the finish line which somewhat ruined his race preparation.

However, despite this setback, he was over the moon to even be in New York so completing the marathon was something special.

The crowd support was fantastic and overwhelmingly loud for what is a tough course.

The first mile was uphill before turning into Brooklyn and then heading into one of the seemingly never-ending avenues.

Once runners arrived at the centre of Brooklyn, the road narrowed and turned up Lafayette Avenue which was like running up one of the mountain stages of the Tour de France.

At around mile 15 came the Queensboro bridge which was eerily silent compared with the rest of the course. The bridge has a long steady incline and all of the runners were suffering at this point but minutes later they hit the wall of sound on First Avenue and got a real boost.

First Avenue was a three-mile straight line and at the end was the Bronx where, at 19 miles, Stark had to walk for the first time, his lack of fitness finally getting the better of him.

After negotiating the Bronx, runners returned to Manhattan for the last leg of the race.

Central Park was very hilly so, from 23 miles onwards, Stark was run-walking to get home.

Once again, the crowds were phenomenal as runners entered the park for the first time.

They briefly left the park after 25 miles before turning back into it for the ever-so-cruel uphill finish but, at this point, Stark was so happy to have finished he didn’t care with a time of 4hrs 26mins.