SISTERS are doing it for themselves, sang Annie Lennox over the speakers, as the last of the 650 women who had lined up for the first Salisbury Race For Life left Salisbury athletics track to pound their way around Hudsons Field.

And, indeed, they were.

Cancer Research UK will benefit financially, but this was a race all about women doing something positive to help people they love fight a disease that has claimed so many loved ones and threatens the lives of so many more.

On their backs, the runners had pinned pink cards dedicating their run to people touched by cancer - simple messages: 'my nan', 'my lovely mum', 'my uncles', 'my dad'.

Some wrote just one name, others more.

Some were running to celebrate the memory of someone they'd lost, some had had cancer, some were still fighting it.

But, in spite of the terrible statistics - one in three people will get cancer - and the tragic loss behind so many of those pink cards, this had to be one of the most celebratory, life-affirming exercises to take place in the city.

"I'd like to think I had cancer - but I haven't got it now," said Kathryn Bartle. Last year, the 45-year-old was too ill to take part.

The old and the young ran. Arthritis didn't stop Pauline Weller (68), of Bulford, whose mother died from bowel cancer in 1961.

"I feel I've missed out. You only really appreciate someone when they've gone," she said.

Alison Cousins was running with her mother, Janet Jones, and her eight-year-old daughter Jennifer.

"I've done it for the past three years in Bournemouth," she said.

"It gives you a real sense of doing something for other women."

Youngest by far was the unborn son - or daughter - of 35-weeks pregnant Janie Keating, who gave mum plenty of kicks on the way round.

"I've loved it - I'll definitely do it again and I'll bring the pram next year," Janie said.

Everyone had a reason to push themselves round the course and everyone crossed the finish line in triumph.

Salisbury district councillor Sheila Warrander, her arm strapped up because of the lymphadema she still suffers as a result of her own bout of breast cancer, said it was a way of giving back and doing something positive.

"I'm running in memory of a brilliant surgeon who saved my life, but lost his own to cancer," she said.

With her was Teresa Cole-Morgan, who has also suffered breast cancer, and SDC's head of community initiatives, Lesley Waller, one of many SDC employees taking part.

For some, emotions were raw and tears were choked back. A team of eight ran for Eve - a mum, a sister, an auntie - who died in May.

Heather Borelli, of Woodfalls, had the name of hospital colleague Alison Ashworth on her back. "But the list goes on," she said. "I'm doing it for Dawn Halski and for Sue and Jane - in the end, there are too many to write.

"Then you read the messages on other people's backs and you just want to weep and end up running for them, too."