3 of North Down AC’s well travelled marathon runners took on the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday 5th March; Darren completed his Abbot Marathon Majors journey, earning the coveted 6th star for finishing the world’s biggest marathons, London, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Boston and Tokyo! Cliff and Noreen returned to Japan after their previous entry to the prestigious event was cancelled at the beginning of Covid lockdown precautions. In addition to their lengthy marathon training regimes and the logistics of travelling to Tokyo, the 3 North Down AC athletes had to negotiate health monitoring and Covid screening tests before leaving home, on arrival in Tokyo, during bib collection at the marathon expo and once more as they entered the marathon start area! Darren finished in 4:58:56. Noreen ran 5:20:11 and Cliff’s recently injured right glute, which wasn’t helped by a 16 hour flight, saw him racing to stay ahead of the broom wagon and instant disqualification, in a painful 6:21:10.
