Eleven senior club runners and two junior runners were involved in the prestigious London marathon and mini marathon on Sunday. With a lot of them running for worthwhile causes and the experience of the event, fast times and pb’s aren’t always on the priority list.
One who did target this as a race and made a good job of a three and half month training regime was Darren Hamilton who came under the 3 hours with some ease, recording a pb of 2:57:05.
Ultra and marathon specialist Sean Nickell put in a good show when he recorded 3:09:55 and Fiona McQuillan got the reward for her committed training up to the event when she was next in with 3:16:09. The ever improving Chris Downey made it home a little over 2 minutes later in 3:18:14 before Douglas Gordon got in under the three and a half mark with 3:29:01.
The first of our two club allocations was next on the scene with Helen Byers clocking a very respectable 3:38:55. Our other club entrant was Cliff McCausland who has now come the full length of C25K right up to marathon in a very short space of time and on Sunday recorded a satisfying 4:11:28. To mark their unique representations of the club Helen adopted blue and yellow finger nails and Cliff a temporary inscription of a ND runner in his hair – hope I’ve got that the right way around!
Our remaining 4 athletes all finished within 6 minutes of each other starting with Angela Fawthrop finishing on 4:34:02 and then Alison Wise who had a very rewarding time of 4:36:18.
Heidi Rodgers returned on 4:39:47 before Helen Irvine completed a remarkable return to running following injury with 4:40:53.
Tara McDonough and Murphy Millar represented Northern Ireland in the mini marathon races held over the last 3 miles of the full marathon course. Both girls had exceptional runs where they both finished 3rd returns for NI, Tara in U13 and Murphy U15.
ND runners London Marathon results
*Times above are unofficial.