Coronation Street's Craig Gazey and Emmerdale's Tony Audenshaw were among a host of soap stars who took part in the Bupa Great North Run in Newcastle at the weekend. The Coronation Street and Emmerdale actors were all running as part of the TV Times Banana Army running team, in aid of blood cancer charity Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research. Craig (pictured), 28, who plays Coronation Street's Graeme Proctor, has been training hard and Tweeted the day before the run: "I have a day off [after] to recover, everything should be fine and dandy and hopefully under 1hr 40!" Jake Wood, who plays Max Branning in EastEnders was also running along with co-star John Partridge, who plays Christian Clarke, and former Hollyoaks star Stuart Manning. Coronation Street's Graeme Hawley, who plays crooked teacher John Stape and co-star Vicky Binns, who plays Molly Dobbstook, took part in the 13.1-mile race, while Tom Lister who plays Carl King, Matthew Wolfenden, who plays David Metcalfe, and Nicola Wheeler, who plays Nicola De Souza, were also running for Emmerdale. The Banana Army is named after their bright yellow t-shirts. But regular marathon runner Tony, 45, who plays Emmerdale's Bob Hope, actually ran in a banana costume. Matthew and Nicola appeared to have swapped outfits for a more 'bananas' appearance as Matthew was dressed as Supergirl and Nicola was Superman. The soap stars joined 54,000 who took part in the charity run from Newcastle city centre, where Geordie duo Ant and Dec fired the starting pistols, and finished on the coast in South Shields, South Tyneside. TV Times is expecting to raise £2 million for charity via their sporting event in 2010. Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk’s weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop
