First, a brief video of the runners in the second mile . .

and now back to the beginning . . when, having visited Richmond Park a week before the race to witness the Race Director and some of the marshals make the most of their opportunity to run the Marathon course, I was really looking forward to covering the 2nd Richmond Park Marathon on Sunday . . and I wasn't disappointed . .

. . there are always some no shows at every race and this year the sun was amongst them . . we were below the flight path into Heathrow and yet didn't see an aeroplane all day long . .

 . . when I arrived the marshals were being briefed by Race Director Gareth . .

 . . and at Race HQ there was a reminder of the award the Richmond Park Marathon had recently won . . having been chosen as the Best New Race of 2011 . .

 . . I wanted to get up on Sawyer's Hill, early in the second mile, where there should have been views across to the City of London over the runners' shoulders, so I set off across the park at 8.45 . . here's a view looking back at Race HQ . .

 . . and I made it to my vantage point (from where I could just make out the vague shapes of iconic buildings like The Shard and The Gherkin) at 9 o'clock, and there I met Juliette, who had been delayed on her journey to the start line of her first marathon. I was able to reassure her that she was headed in the right direction . . and as she disappeared down one path, a monkey on a bike came round the corner . .

 . . closely followed by almost two hundred runners . . with Juliette almost quarter of an hour behind, chasing after all the others . .

. . once I'd seen everyone on the first leg of their journey I set off for the White Lodge where I hoped to see everyone once again. Unfortunately I either over-estimated how long it would take me to walk there, or under-estimated how quickly the runners would get there . . so I didn't see many and didn't notice the Camera Alert until almost everyone had gone by . .

. . when I was following everyone down the winding road towards the car park in the middle of the Park . .

. . where I resisted the coffee and food available and walked along to where I had a view of some deer and Pen Ponds through the trees . . and hoped they would add something to the runners' photos . . but first there were bikes . . and that monkey once again . . 

. . I couldn't stop here for everyone as I needed to get over to the southern edge of the Park so that I could follow the Tamsin Trail back to Race HQ. The Marathon course covered two laps of the Trail, which follows the circumference of the Park, and I knew I'd have a good chance of seeing everyone at least once . .

. . Ealing Eagles Running Club had at least 5 runners i the race and each of them seemed to have at least 5 supporters, who were having a great day out cheering their club mates on . . and also found time to help all the runners get across a busy road junction . .

there was a bit of a bottleneck at this footbridge . . whenever i tried to get across there was another runner coming . . but I made it across after a while . .

. . walked past Adam's Pool . .

. . and there in the distance was Race HQ and the Finish Line . .

Many thanks as always to the runners for their cheerful waves and smiles . . and to Gareth and Ray for the invitation to come along to take the photos. Use the buttons at the foot and at the top left each page to find all the different sets of photos . .