A Coalville couple in their 70s both completed the London Marathon last weekend to mark their golden wedding anniversary.

Freda, 77, and Malcolm Allsop, 79, ran the iconic 26 mile event, raising money for the Loros charity as they did so.

The couple made it around the course, walking for much of the way.

Freda told Central ITV it was her idea and said: "The marathon just happened to be on the same day as our wedding. And you couldn't have anything more memorable than actually running in the marathon.

"It was just something I would want to do."

Malcolm said it was not the first time he had tackled the event.

He added: "Originally, I thought it was a really stupid idea, because I've done the marathon before in the 1980s. So I knew how far it was.

"But after we'd done it, it was a fantastic feeling to have actually achieved what we set out to do, because at our age, lots of people in their 70s do still run and run very quickly, but not us, to be honest. We walk."

Freda also said that the feat ended up proving people wrong.

She said: "We were walking most of the time, and we gradually got more and more miles. And we got up to about 19 about three weeks ago.

"So, I must admit, we got to about 20 miles, and I knew that I was going to be able to finish it. I never felt we weren't. That was my aim to actually finish it. We weren't interested in the time. But we thought we would take about eight hours. But we did it in a quicker time than we thought."

"I think I shall still carry on with the parkrun which is a 5k event. But I don't think I shall be doing the marathon every day."

Malcolm added that there was no shortage of support for the both of them.

He said: "We've got four daughters, three son-in-laws and seven grandchildren. And they were there en masse to cheer us on. So that was a fantastic encouragement for us."