The distance between their Behala address and Blackheath, the starting point of last Sunday's London Marathon, was too long to fathom for the 21 inmates of the orphanage Shuktara, all with varying degrees of disability. But after four hours 11 minutes, London had come home to them, thanks to Emma D'Arcey, participant number 2418, who finished the 26.2 mile course in that time in a self-designed T-shirt bearing the Shuktara logo.
Textile designer Emma ran the first marathon of her life in support of the Calcutta orphanage, set up by fellow-Britisher David Earp 18 years ago, which is now home to 13 boys and eight girls.
Her initial target was raising £1,500 but as she sprinted in freezing cold to the Tower bridge, through Woolwich, past Greenwich, circling the Isle of Dogs and then towards Buckingham Palace, donations began to pour into her charity page justgiving.com/Emma-D-Arcey. "She ended up raising £3,000-plus which will support the home for an entire month," exclaimed Earp, who tracked Emma's progress live on the Net from the Behala home.
Cheering Emma on the marathon route were friends and family waving tabards and banners that she had designed for Shuktara. After all, the 40-year-old was fulfilling a dream she has nurtured for 12 years.
Exhausted but elated, Emma later emailed to Metro, "I have lived on the marathon route for 10 years and used to go out to cheer participants along. The race shows London at its very best - from the warmth of the volunteers handing out water, the huge amounts of money raised for wonderful causes, lots of moving stories from the runners, international records broken and the incredible cheering crowd along the entire route willing everyone on."
For the last 12 years, she had been putting her name in the marathon ballot, hoping for a place. This year, she finally ended up among the 38,000 participants selected from the record 2,47,069 who applied.
"When I finally got in, it was important for me to choose something I had a personal connection with, hence Shuktara."
Though Emma has never been to Calcutta, she had heard enough about David's work. "I am so thrilled to be running for them; it is an incredible cause."
But participating in a marathon did not come easy to an amateur who took to running purely to beat "the January blues", when London is cold and dark. "There is a huge difference between running casually along the Thames and training for a marathon. Suddenly your body becomes like a machine, craving carbs; muscles and joints start aching!"
Since October, she followed a rigorous training plan given by the marathon organisers and a diet of extra carbohydrates to build energy.
Now having successfully run the race, Emma plans to visit Calcutta. "I want to meet all the gorgeous smiles that kept me going when the training got tough. And I could do with some of those delicious-sounding Shuktara Cakes!" she wrote, referring to the orphanage's bakery unit.