After watching the race on TV for years and entering the ballot 10 to 12 times without success, it became one mum’s life goal to run a marathon before she reached 40.

Amy Hardiman, a remote business and lifestyle support partner, drew her motivation towards running the marathon from her three kids, wanting to show them what she could achieve and “push them out of their comfort zones”.

She ran her first 8km just 18 months ago in preparation for the big day, then followed online London Marathon training programmes since Christmas.

Amy ran the marathon to raise money for the Sheffield-based Snowdrop Project, who support survivors of modern slavery and exploitation to recover and rebuild.

She said: “I just felt so lucky to be there. And just doing those miles knowing that people have walked in harder times helped me get through it.”

She is looking to raise £2500 for the charity, believing more awareness is needed to recognise everyday situations in businesses where modern slavery takes place.

Amy said: “The funding goal has been really tough. The charity has been brilliant, but it’s really tough to get people to part with their hard-earned cash at the minute.”

The technical aspect of preparing for a marathon was something that Amy wasn’t aware of before, aiming to increase her maximal oxygen consumption (VO2 max), which is crucial for a marathon runner to maximise their oxygen capacity.

Further motivation arose from what she called a “midlife crisis”, being tough at home for her to balance her life as a mum with her training schedule.

Amy said: “I think I’ll be glad to have my Sundays back because it wasn’t just popping out for a quick run. It was taking up pretty much the whole day.”

Once the marathon had begun, the constant cheering and atmosphere along the route was a surprise to Amy, with people having house parties outside their houses near the course and others setting up picnics for the day just to cheer everybody on.

The sun was shining, elevating the experience for the runners and spectators, despite Amy joking that: “I’d have rather it had been a bit cloudy as a runner”.

Amy said: “There wasn’t any part of the course that was quiet, and if they saw anyone walking they would try to shout out their names to get them going again.”

The most challenging part of the race for Amy was the start line, which was silent and unusual for her as she expected a motivational speech or pre-race warm-up before the race began.

Kilometres 10 to 25 were the toughest for her, because of the mental challenge of realising how far she’d gone already, with a long way still to go.

Amy said: “You could really feel everybody’s nerves and there were a lot of people doing it for charity so they were thinking about their loved ones and their causes, so I was really taken aback with that.”

The highlight of Amy’s race was seeing people she knew along the way, including her husband and her daughter, as well as seeing the finish line, where she said: “there’s nothing like it”.

One special moment Amy picked out was after she felt sad that she hadn’t seen her friends, a friend from school runs with the kids jumped out screaming her name and shared a massive hug which kept her going.

Amy said: “There were moments thinking I just want this to be over, but there weren’t any moments where I thought I can’t do this.”

When asked how the marathon resulted in a major success, Amy put it down to carb loading and fuelling up as well as extensive mental preparation.

Her husband was Amy’s biggest motivator, telling her what her current pace was and how far she would have to run to reach targets throughout the race.

Amy said: “After you’ve had kids you want to be more than just mum, and when you’ve got little people looking up to you, you just want to show them that anything is possible really.”

At the finish line she didn’t collect her medal straight away, opting to collect her thoughts and spent a couple of minutes thinking about what she had achieved.

One regret is wishing she had spent more time in the finishers area to embrace the feeling of reaching her goal.

To make up for it, Amy wore her finishers medal and T-shirt on her school run this morning.