King's Lynn's David Blackmore returning to London Marathon

Keen runner David Blackmore, 36, from King’s Lynn, collapsed with heat stroke in 2021 during his first London Marathon attempt and was unable to finish, saying “my dream turned into a nightmare so close to the end”.

However, he is set to return when the race – which he said he “grew up watching” and “always wanted to do” – returns on April 23, adding the incident in 2021 has “only had a positive impact”.

Mr Blackmore, from King's Lynn, is a keen runner (Image: PA)

“I felt fine until about mile 22-23, and then I couldn’t really remember much else,” he said.

“The only thing that I can remember was a feeling that my head was made of lead and really heavy, and me justifying to myself that actually I could just run for the next three miles, four miles with my hands holding up my head.

“From what the St John Ambulance people have told me, (I was) displaying all the symptoms of heat stroke/heat exhaustion, which is being dazed and confused."

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Mr Blackmore is raising money for the St John's Ambulance at the London Marathon (Image: PA)

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In the period since his collapse, Mr Blackmore, a TV journalist and former EDP reporter, has completed marathons in Brighton, Vienna and Atlanta, as well as completing a virtual challenge to run the length of Route 66 in the US and raising money for the East Anglian Air Ambulance in August 2022 in the 435-mile Lap of Anglia challenge.

Now he is raising money for St John Ambulance, saying it “made perfect sense” to do so “to say thank you”, and towards the end of March he passed his £2,000 target.

He added: “Sometimes it sounds a little bit overdramatic to say that they saved my life, but if they hadn’t acted in the way they did, as quickly as they did, it definitely could have led to more lasting damage.”

Find out more about Mr Blackmore’s fundraising efforts at justgiving.com.