ON Sunday thousands of people, including a team from the Gazette, took to the streets of Bath to run 13.1 miles.

For some it was all about times and personal bests but for the vast majority the reason for pounding the roads in the heat was to raise money for charity.

The Gazette team of seven was raising money for Dorothy House Hospice at Winsley.

This wonderful place offers comfort and hope to hundreds of people every years.

There service it provides not only to its patients but to their families as well is priceless. It offers a wonderful haven of calm and care at a difficult time when many who enter its doors are in despair.

But the hospice does far more than just offer in-patient treatment. It also sends its wonderful nurses and care assistants out into the community to help people see out their final days in their own homes, if that is their wish.

Whole families are made to feel special and counsellors also offer a listening ear and shoulder to cry on when it is needed most.

But Dorothy House does not receive much of its cash from the health service.

Every year it has to raise millions of pounds to keep its services, which are on offer to people throughout Devizes, Chippenham and Malmesbury, going.

The Gazette was proud to do its bit for Dorothy House on Sunday and glad to join forces with scores of other people resplendent in the same t-shirts and championing the same cause.

Our times may not have been the quickest and none of us were going to win any prizes but if this charity can gain we are pleased to have put our best feet forward.