London Calling
AVRs were out en masse at the TCS London Marathon this year. With good-for-age, charity, club and ballot places an incredible 15 took to the streets of the capital on Sunday while two others ran the challenging 26.2 miles closer to home as a virtual event.
Up in London the first AVR home was Terry Emmett who paced his race perfectly to finish a superb 500th in an excellent 2:38.34, 87th M40.
Duncan Staddon in 2:48.08 and Matt Hewer in 2:58.37 also impressed with their sub-3 hour finishes.
Despite a recent spate of injuries, Rob Collier finished in a brilliant 3:06.22.
Rupert Pady was next AVR home in 3:17.50.
Kerry Board, running her first London marathon in the city rather than virtually, finished in an excellent eight minute marathon PB of 3:37.17, while Karen Eyre completed it in 3:39.01, a London best.
Alan Hornibrook completed his 13th London marathon in 3:54.01, an impressive 81st M65.
Rob Gibson, raising money for Seaton Primary School following his success in the club ballot, finished in 4:08.05.
Club chair, Haydn Boehm and Wayne Tooze ran together raising funds for the charity, Brain Research, finishing in 4:05.04 and 4:05.05.
Angela Kerr, running an incredible 14th London marathon and her 48th in total, finished in 4:37.52 and 57th F65 to comfortably retain her good-for-age place.
Ferenc Kovacs came in in 4:50.41 for his first non-virtual marathon; Tracey Anning-Beckett finished in 5:07.16 while Kathryn Thompson, who has also had to overcome serious injury and illness, finished in 5:48.18.
More than 45,000 runners completed the marathon which was won in a new course record of 2:01.25 by Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya. The women’s race was full of drama with Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands taking the win in 2:18.33 on her marathon debut despite looking to be suffering from a hip injury during the race.
Both Mark Day and Louise Rawlins enjoyed lots of support from fellow AVRs pacing, cheering and a finish line welcome at the end of Seaton Esplanade worthy of The Mall itself. Mark finished in a PB of 4:56.52 while Louise, completed her first ever marathon, having only started running two years ago in a creditable 5:11.24.
In the Mini London Marathon on Saturday Innes FitzGerald successfully defended her title with another dominating performance finishing a full 15 seconds ahead of the second placed runner on the 2.6k course.
Boston Bonanza
Tim Sibley travelled to the USA to take part in one of the Marathon Majors, the famous Boston Marathon which takes place annually on Patriots Day. He completed it in 3:33.09 which was a great time on a tough course made all the more challenging with the wind and rain. Even the GOAT, Kipchoge struggled.
AVRs dominate Seaton parkrun
AVR had a great day at Seaton parkrun this week with Rich Hardy coming in as first finisher just a week after completing the Newport Marathon. His 16:58 also placed him second on age-grade. Luke Reed nabbed second spot in 17:53.
First female was Deborah Whiston in 20.05. Top on age-grade was Eleanor Wood with an amazing 91% for her 22:53 finish.
There were also PBs for Jason Potter in 20:53; Steve Lewis, again a week after running Manchester Marathon, in 24:53; Elaine Chesterman in 33:07 and Liz Curley in 34:18.
On the road, Sam Miller and Tony Smith nabbed their V for the alphabet challenge at Victoria Docks parkrun which was alive with pre-marathon fever. Dave Hutton and Sue Chambers were at Isabel Trail (grabbing their I) while Tim, Amie and James Sibley took part in Fletcher’s Cove parkrun in Washington while in the USA for the Boston Marathon.
