Olivia & Tom lead the way home at the London Marathon

The London Marathon took place on a cool day, and the threatened rain did not materialise to leave some good running conditions. From my vantage point at KM 36, I could see the mix of Heathside runners, a good number looking strong and a few finding the going much harder, but a great event all in all. The top positions in the Mass event for the club in the men’s and women’s categories respectively were 21st for Tom Aldred  and 39th for Olivia Desborough, who improved her PB by 13 minutes to 2hr 49min for surely the day’s best performance.

Olivia and Josie Hinton had a good battle, rarely more than a minute apart, which Olivia won to claim the first Heathside woman spot, while Tom was once again in his element and our first man home .

There were also Top 100 finishes for Josie Hinton, Andy Barnes, and James Hurrell, with the latter 2 dipping under the 2hr 30 barrier for the first time when recording PB’s. Sion Lewis & Dan Collins also ran recorded PB’s to get under the 2hr 40 mark, as did Ed Boden who recorded 2hr 46min in the V50 age group ( but not a club age group record this time )

Out of the 35 recorded club finishers there were 16 sub 3hr clockings. Full results below

TCS London Marathon                                                  2 Oct

( gender position,  Mass event)

21           Tom Aldred                     2:25:11                  4th V40

59          Andrew Barnes               2 29: 03

74           James Hurrell                 2:29:54

142         Sion Lewis                      2:34.20                  22nd V40

181         George Gurney                2.36.06

222         Dan Collins                     2.37.23

568         Ed Boden                         2;46:03                  22nd V50

708         Thomas Foy                    2:48:27

39           Olivia Desborough           2:49:41

919         Jonny Forsyth                 2:51:45                  48th V50

49           Josie Hinton                   2:51:46

943         Nicholas Gibson              2:52:00

1197       David Keir                        2:55:24 

1248       Rob Hynds                       2:55:53

1441       Alex Sweet                       2:57:36

1527       Justin Badger                  2:58:12                34th V55

1858       Rob Shulman                   3.01.10                 

2170       Paul Jarman                    3:05:03

2601       Oliver Murray                   3:10:23

3071       Leo Burningham              3:15:38

3227       Valentin Valeanu             3:17:18

3309       Tom Bryant                     3:18:01

3471       Lenny Martin                  3:19:27

588         Sara Garcia                     3:22:05 

4307       Michael King                 3:26:58

4353      Stephen Barron                3:27:26 

931         Ciara Williams                 3:29:16

4701       Nicholas O’Hora              3:29:36

4740       Philip Hogg                     3:29:49

1623       Trudy Kearney                3:41:00

 9324       Andy Dawson                 3:58:36

4041       Jo Goodall                      4:09:28

6047       Amy Sullivan                   4:29:52

15212    Syed Hussain                   4:38:10

20118    John O’Neill                     5:22:13

TCS Mini-Marathon, Westminster,                                                         1  Oct

Simon Baker reports

“ A large number of the Club's Young Athletes got to taste the Marathon atmosphere running the last 2.62 miles of the marathon course.  Highest placed was Izzy Watkins 4th in the U17W Borough Challenge with Hattie Munday 8th.   Amy Kirk also recorded an 18th place in the U15 Girls race.”

Borough Challenge Results

U17 Men

1st G Stubbs (Barnet) 7:32

30th David Baah-Okyere (Haringey) 8:31

67th Greg Berrisford-Smith (Islington) 8:59

88th Ivor Joslin (Islington) 9:26

U15 Boys

1st A Lennon (Sutton) 7:44

41st Sam Lindsell (Haringey) 9:03

50th Dylan Mills (Hackney) 9:07

65th Koppany Szentes (Islington) 9:27

83rd Alex Pountney (Haringey) 9:39  

106th Ben Redland (Haringey) 10:00

114th Harry Conley (Islington) 10:17

128th Lloyd Pritchard (Islington)

U13 Boys

1st C Holmes (Southwark) 8:29

32nd Rory Willis (Islington) 9:40

71st Ennio Kaloukian (Islington) 10:13

77th Noah Iffland (Islington) 10:20

86th Alex Kirk (Haringey) 10:25

107th Lincoln Harrison (Islington) 10:47

120th Pip Young (Islington) 11:07

U17 Women

1st A Mann (Hackney) 8:23

4th Izzy Watkins (Haringey) 8:55 (38th in British Athletics Road Championships)

8th Hattie Munday (Haringey) 9:15

36th Ruby Walls (Islington) 10:07

41st Lucy Corkin (Islington) 10:13

62nd Milly Watkins (Haringey) 10:43

71st Anna Pritchard (Islington) 10:54

U15 Girls

1st K Pye (Kingston) 8:33

18th Amy Kirk (Haringey) 9:34

26th Kiara Corkin (Islington) 9:46

56th Ishaana Cannell (Hackney) 10:19

66th Lettice Gundry (Islington) 10:32

81st Ivy Gray (Haringey) 10:53

112th Jessica Lappin (Haringey) 11:48  

U13 Girls

1st S Summer (Havering) 9:11

53rd Maya Westgate (Hackney) 10:47

54th Caitlin Roberts (Haringey) 10:48

80th Margot Hunt (Haringey) 11:34

81st Reke Szentes (Islington) 11:40

82nd Abigail Henderson (Islington) 11:42

115th Alice Rockhill (Islington) 12:42

Cardiff Half Marathon                                                                   2 Oct

Although the London Marathon and related events understandably dominated attention, there were other events taking place which had noteworthy Heathside representation. Included in this was the Cardiff Half marathon where Jamie got a big PB and Alex ran his first race as Heathsider

 reports Jamie ;

 “ Whilst most eyes were on London, there were three Heathsiders running in Wales’ biggest race; the Cardiff Half Marathon. The heavy morning rain cleared just in time to produce great running conditions. “

113         Jamie Morris                      1h 18m 13s    PB 8th V45

2207       Alex Bray                            1h 45m 40s                         

3198       Angharad Harris                1h 57m 40s

Chingford League #1, Eastbrookend Country Park, Dagenham    -             1 Oct

 There was a small club turnout for the opening Chingford League fixture at Eastbrookend Park, however both Pete and Sue finished 1st and 2nd respectively in their age groups, as Pete reports ;

“ Cross country returned on a sunny morning in a flat nature reserve and neighbouring park in Dagenham.  Marshalling problems meant the course was a bit under-distance, but everyone seemed to enjoy being back out there. Ryan was frustrated to suffer with cramp after a late dash by bicycle to make it on time, but Sue and I had uneventful runs, bar the uncertainty over the finish. “

1st           Joe Dale  (Victoria Pk H )     22:36

33           Ryan McCarthy                      27:02

54           Pete Crockford                     28:44 (1st MV60-69)

162         Sue Eedle                            35:19 (2nd FV60-69)

Team

Men Division 2:- 4th London Heathside 185 pts

Women Division 2:- 6th London Heathside 103 pts

Chester Marathon,                                                                                         Oct 2

Gavin Evans looked to have ended up disappointed in his attempts to gain an England age group place ( V60 ), for next year’s England Masters Marathon event, having had a disrupted build up, but knowing Gavin I’m sure he won’t give up !   he reports ;

 “ There are all sorts of ways marathon plans can go awry, as just about everyone who has done a few will know. After a long spell of all going more or less to plan, I’ve had three where I’ve messed up, one way or another, and Chester was the latest.

I entered to try for an England age group place but just when serious training should have started I got Covid and although Omicron’s symptoms were mild, they lingered for months. Then I picked up an achilles-adjacent foot injury. But eventually everything kicked in and two weeks of rest eased the foot pain. My only fear was picking up a bug in the final week, as had happened three times before. So I avoided public transport and so on.

However, two days before departure I looked after my grandson who wasn’t quite recovered from a viral infection. In the coach on the way to Cheshire (train strike) I began to feel fuzzy-headed and my pulse rate rose from its normal resting 44 to 56. By the time I reached my hotel bed it was up to 64 and on marathon morning I woke covered in sweat with a 66 rate. I took two paracetamol and made my way to the race where I took two more. The wooziness went but my pulse rate rose to 74 – 30 more than it should have been.

Conditions over this gently undulating course were near-perfect (16 degrees and a light breeze) but from the gun everything felt harder than normal and I was panting heavily when running at a pace that should have been comfortable. I reached the halfway in 1:28:15 but it felt like much more effort than it should have. At 15 miles I began to feel very weak and my body didn’t want to run any further. Soon after I watched the sub-3 marker go past and from then-on I struggled. I finished in 3:11:33, my slowest in 16 years.

Rather to my surprise I found that I was the fourth V60 but because one of them was a Scotsman I was the third Englishman, which meant I’d qualified. I notified England Athletics but they emailed me back to say I hadn’t filled in an extra form they had belatedly added to their website, so it looks like I’ll have to try again. The good news is that London 2023 is now an official qualifier event and I’ll be running that – this time with no toddlers in the last week. “

Result (2404 finishers)

277th  Gavin Evans (4th V60)                          3h 11m .33s

Parkruns

Parkruns were a little overshadowed by a certain marathon event, but we have to make note of a first place at Bower Park for William Wagstaff (V60 ), showing it’s never too late !  Other more expected first place finishes were for Seyfu Jamaal ( Finsbury Park ) and Rebecca Bunting  (Hampstead Heath ), with 2nd places for Rebecca Piggott ( Finsbury Park ), Graham Wilkinson  (Rickmansworth ) & Melvin Lewis ( Grovelands )

 Full results can be found here

Compiled by Mark George, thanks to reports from Jamie Morris, Gavin Evans, and Simon Baker