Hundreds of volunteers took to their heels for the British Heart Foundation’s annual Olympic Park fundraising runs aiming for a cool £100,000.

East London Advertiser: Winners! Running pals finish the Olympic Park challenge helping British Heart Foundation raise £100,000 for research. Picture source: BHFWinners! Running pals finish the Olympic Park challenge helping British Heart Foundation raise £100,000 for research. Picture source: BHF (Image: BHF)

The challenges attracted 800 runners for the five or 10 kilometre stint on Saturday to raise urgently needed funds for the charity’s life-saving heart research.

The runners are helping the organisation raise £100,000 towards research that could one day prevent or treat heart and circulatory disease, which affects around seven million people in the UK.

“We wouldn’t be able to pay for research that has broken new ground without our runners,” the charity’s Leanne Postlethwaite said. “Research has revolutionised treatments and transformed the lives of millions of people.”

As many as seven million people in Britain are living with heart and circulatory disease which causes 150,000 deaths every year, the charity points out. Annual challenges like the Olympic Park run, the organisers hope, can one day “stop heart disease in its tracks”.