London Marathon 2016: Webster breaks club record & women take Team Silver!
Heathsiders turned out in large numbers at the capital’s most prestigious running event once again, as a whopping 58 runners took to those famous streets - a remarkable 21 of whom completed in under 3 hours - while a whole host of others lined the route to cheer on their clubmates. Aside from the numerous eye catching times and the huge sense of achievement felt after months of training, dedication and hard slog, our Facebook page and Twitter feed were flooded with comments about how much the support from the Heathside massive helped to get them through those hardest of miles and reiterated once more just what a bloody lovely club this is.
But back to the actual running, the big story of the day has to be Katy Webster leading the women home in a new club record time of 2:40:30 - the fallen record of course being the one that she set herself the previous year! Will it be three in a row in 2017? Katy’s brilliant finish was backed up by fine performances from Celine Murray, who got the sub 3 hour time she’d worked so hard for and Rachel Newstead coming in not far behind in 3:02:59. Those three performances meant that they picked up the team silver medal, a fantastic achievement.
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Looking at the top of the men’s results, Tom Aldred was first over the line in an incredible position of 39th (2:27:12) while next home, and also breaking the top 200 was Andy Barnes with a huge PB (2:36:29 - with a large negative split!) and behind him two Toms - Stephenson and Livermore - also secured PBs (2:39:32 and 2:42:29) with Allan Whatmough sandwiched between them.
There’s just too many great runs to single out, but there were PBs aplenty all over the field, including Mario Cadete and Jonathan Hopkin continuing their fine recent form to slice over 10 and 6 minutes off their previous bests. Nick Haward was another to take 10 minutes off their previous time while Monika Newton now has a PB that is over 8 minutes faster than her last one from 2014 and Henry Hamilton Gould, who sounds pretty stoked by the whole experience: “I just wanted to add my thanks to this club for making me achieve the impossible. I took 10 minutes off my PB to run 3:06 - that's EIGHTEEN minutes quicker than my PB just a year ago & 73 minutes quicker than my first marathon time 10 years ago. I know that it wouldn't have been possible without the amazing training sessions this club offers from those cold winter track reps to the 'rollercoaster hills' to the X-country muddy fields & not forgetting the gruelling "Horrid Hill" on a Sunday morning. It's also the people within the club that make each run so enjoyable & worth while. I was so happy to run alongside so many of them during the marathon whilst at the same time cheered on from the pavements by the awesome & ever- present Heathside "rabble" - there's no doubt the combination of both those pushed me faster than I'd ever run before (even running a 10k & 10m PB during it). So cheers Heathside! Let's do it all again soon!”
Elsewhere, Jim Connell (despite complaining of a ‘sore brain’ pre-race) ended up going sub 3 hours despite having both the Tokyo and Paris marathons still very much in his legs, David Hellard tapered down from the Marathon des Sables by just running the one marathon this time (as a pacer), while newcomer Yvette Ralston was delighted with her 4:18 finish and judging by the Facebook pictures after, Jessica Vinluan (3:57:39), who had been rewarded with a club place, looked delighted with the whole experience.
So a fantastic occasion all round and the Club as a whole can look back with pride at the day and everything that led up to it, from Jacob and Kabir’s training sessions, to everyone’s own personal determination, fantastic support and for some, even a pretty marathon drink-up afterwards! Last word though goes to silver medallist Rachel, who’s email summed things up very nicely indeed: “It was just so inspiring to have that many Heathsiders around, both running and supporting.”
Full Results:
39 Tom Aldred 2:27:12
185 Andy Barnes 2:36:29
284 Tom Stephenson 2:39:32
323 Allan Whatmough 2:40:29
324 Katy Webster 2:40:30
403 Tom Livermore 2:42:29
567 Chris Uff 2:45:21
785 George Stewart 2:49:09
919 Richard Taylor 2:51:13
1092 Paul Jarman 2:53:26
1146 Mario Cadete 2:53:54
1208 Jonathan Hopkin 2:54:31
1245 Sion Lewis 2:54:55
1355 Robert Shulman 2:55:48
1447 Gavin Evans 2:56:32
1481 Steve Armstrong 2:56:43
1678 Paul Mercer 2:57:53
1705 Celine Murray 2:58:00
1841 James Lynch 2:58:42
1889 James Connell 2:58:52
1978 Matthew Cockerill 2:29:21
2140 Stuart Meiklejohn 3:00:43
2197 Mark Anderson 3:01:21
2347 Rachel Newstead 3:02:59
2473 Nick Haward 3:03:57
2739 Henry Hamilton-Gould 3:06:25
2783 Philip Hogg 3:06:48
2801 Dominic Jackson 3:06:55
2916 Andrew Welshman 3:07:59
3317 Simon Dunderdale 3:10:45
3803 Matt Fassnidge 3:14:04
3924 David Hellard 3:14:49
3985 Alan Smith 3:15:13
4104 Monika Newton 3:16:01
4586 Paul McWilliams 3:19:17
5222 Richard Peachment 3:23:27
5348 Craig Sparkes 3:24:11
5476 Angharad Harris 3:24:59
6347 Lea Michaels 3:29:16
7002 Laura Shipperlee 3:32:16
7335 Jared Houshmand 3:33:54
8960 Maryam Khosravi 3:41:57
9200 Emilia Vynnycky 3:42:54
10655 Gwe Limpalaer 3:48:29
11598 Caroline White 3:51:54
12834 Pete Hurst 3:56:04
13408 Jessica Vinluan 3:57:39
13500 Nilesh Goswami 3:57:55
13629 Paul Silverman 3:58:13
14159 Clare Taylor 3:59:35
14420 Tara Tapper 4:00:22
15183 Marie-Claire Gallagher 4:03:26
16687 Nicholas Hudson 4:09:42
17651 Ken Townson 4:13:43
18998 Yvette Ralston 4:18:37
22303 Liz Rawlings 4:31:13
34133 Rebecca Carlisle 5:34:09
36837 Katie Herbert 6:07:20