Arnie muscles in on marathon feat

As usual, there were plenty of lawyers among the hordes puffing around London for last month's marathon, most impressively some 70 from different firms and chambers (including 27 from City firm DLA) who together raised more than 100,000 for the homeless charity Shelter.

But the most intriguing story comes from Sinclair Sellars (right), a trainee solicitor at south-east firm Thomas Eggar, who raised more than 1,000 for Cancer Research UK, part of which came from none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnie - whose alter ago, The Terminator, is surely as fine a role model as a trainee could hope for - became a friend of Ms Sellars' family many years ago when he was training at her grandfather's gym in Southsea, Portsmouth (ahead of the natural graduation from Southsea to Hollywood).

He then moved to London and lived with her aunt and uncle, who trained him up to win the Mr Universe competition.

Ms Sellars tells Obiter that she has Arnie's e-mail address and received a personal reply from the great man, who remains a family friend and she has met on trips to the US.

How much he sponsored her, however, remains a tightly held secret.

It would be too good if he came back offering her 10p a mile, but 'generous' was as far as Ms Sellars would go.

She finished the course in an impressive five hours, 42 minutes (placing her 6,855th out of 32,563 runners), but the experience was such that she was not saying 'I'll be back'.