More than 6,000 runners are preparing to race through the historic city of York and its surrounding villages as part of the Yorkshire Marathon Festival.
The 26.2 mile (42km) course takes in sights including the 7th Century York Minster and 1066 Viking battleground at Stamford Bridge.
Each has their own reasons for taking part in Sunday’s race, whether trying to set a personal best or raise money for a cause close to their heart.
Among them will be Ellie Freer, who is aiming to complete the route just over a year after undergoing heart surgery.
The operation, to patch up a hole in her heart, followed seven years of uncertainty after she collapsed aged 25.
“My left arm and my left side went completely numb,” Ellie, now 33, recalls, adding that she temporarily lost her vision and had a “really bad headache”.
The audiologist was rushed to hospital from her home in Herefordshire, before undergoing numerous tests and scans.
“Nobody could find anything wrong at all,” she says.
“I was thinking ‘maybe it is actually me – maybe I am the problem’.”
Eventually, a neurologist told her it was “all in [her] head – there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you”, she says.
Despite this, her eyesight was permanently changed, and she has worn glasses ever since.
