London & Stratford

Shane storms the streets of London
Sunday saw thousands of runners and their family & friends make their way to London in record numbers to take part in the most high profile race in the runner’s calendar, the Virgin Money London Marathon.
Seven runners from the Club were amongst the multitudes who lined up at the various starts to tackle the iconic 26.2 miles and it was Shane Chapman, who was first back for the Club, in a superb 2:57:50. On a cold, but dry day, Paul’s performance also had the added benefit of achieving the ‘Good for Age’ standard & qualification for next year’s race. The next two runners back for the Club also had the satisfaction of achieving ‘Good for Age’ standards as Mark Harriott and Tracey Glover recorded excellent chip times of 3:10:48 and 3:36:41 respectively. For Mark it was great reward for a winter of dedicated training and for Tracey her time firmly banished any concerns about the qualifying time she achieved at the Manchester Marathon, which was subsequently found to be 380m short of the standard distance. Paul Glover, on his marathon debut, gave everything to just duck under the 4 hour barrier in 3:59:18. Nikki Reeves, who’s had a far from textbook build up to the race, nevertheless did well to record 4:19:42 while Tony Phillips, whose starting place came from a superb time achieved at the Boston Marathon, should be equally pleased with his 4:35:34. Completing the finishers for the Club was Ron Lane’s 5:57:29. MV70 Lane probably has the record of most appearances from a South Derbyshire Road Runner in this superbly organised event.
London was not the only marathon taking place on Sunday with Steve Fowler tackling the Shakespeare variety while Caley Parnell opted for the half marathon at the same event. They had contrasting fortunes with Steve suffering from the eternal marathon challenge of going brilliantly for most of the race but then experiencing injury niggles that gave him a disappointing but still respectable finishing time of 4:40:17. For Caley, her chip time of 1:41:48 was a massive 2 minute improvement on her performance at last year’s event.