Paris and Brighton marathons, plus some other stuff
We're into the swing of spring and everyone has a spring in their step. Apart from those who did marathons at the weekend and are now waddling like Wombles.
First up, I don't think we had any runners at the ill-fated renewal of the Sheffield Half Marathon, but you're welcome to mail me with your tales of woe. In the meantime, feel free to have a laugh at social media coverage.
In Paris, Kenenisa Bekele strode to victory in his marathon debut. Not exactly breathing down the world 5,000 and 10,000-metre record holder's neck was our very own Simon Hazel, who submitted the following:
"Having struggled with inflamed achilles tendons and averaged less than 10 miles a week since Christmas, my hopes for the Paris marathon were not high. I had my worst day marathoning but quite a nice training run for upcoming ironman triathlons (including the European Champs for GB age group in September). I left my goal of 3:30 somewhere around 40k and finished in 3:40:01. "On a brighter note, my Heathsider travelling companion Katie Creaney ran a PB of 3:56:42."
Well done Katie and nice try Si, but I reckon Bekele does a bit more than 10 miles a week. Also running were Henry H-G, Chris and Lou, Stuart, and Jim. Hopefully everyone was fresh enough to soak up a bit of the Parisian spring sunshine afterwards, or at least a few glasses of red.
At Brighton, William Chebor of Kenya defended his title and we had a stack of Heathsiders either gunning for PBs or helping others have a crack at theirs. Claire S, Gavin and Ellie are confirmed PBs and Celine is a possible. Dave and Sergio were pacing 3:15 and 3:30 respectively so presumably didn't have to stick their hands in their pockets for the price of a drink afterwards. Agi also had a good race, coming close to the 4h mark.
Claire adds, "A guy ran past and cheered on Ellie and I along the way and said he was joining Heathside after the race too!" If his name happened to be William Chebor, Claire's definitely now in charge of recruitment.
At the Woodford Green Open, there were PBs for Jacob Phillips (800m), Mike Abrahams (3000) and Izaiah (shot put). If you're inspired by these heroics, remember the SAL is just around the corner and everyone has a chance to try track and field! Come one, come all - triple jumpers especially welcome. First fixture is at Watford on Saturday April 19th.
Elsewhere
At Lochaber, one of the few marathons of the weekend not to be kitted out with East African ringers, Jane Stephens still failed to pull off a shock victory, coming 271st.
Sue was first lady with a PB at the Self Transcendence 10k, where Phil B also scored a PB
Andy and Ed B ran the City of Lincoln 10k, Louisa the Leamington Regency 10k, and Crispin BC the Bungay Black Dog Half Marathon (no idea what the race name's about, be glad to hear any suggestions).
Sandra was back at Eton Dorney for the duathlon (much to my annoyance as the results are always a pain to format).
Unusual though it is to report on a race that's in progress, we also have a couple of days' results from Claire Morrissey at the Marathon des Sables via Facebook, the main highlight of which is, she's still in one piece and going like a trooper. The race isn't due to finish for several days yet but you can send messages of support via the MDS website, using Claire's competitor number (820). Good luck, Claire - see you in about a fortnight, I guess.
And finally, I've managed to track down where parkrun are hiding their reports these days, confound them. In exotic parkrun news, we had a couple of parkrunners in Ireland this week at Marlay (which is just off the M50) and Westport (three times winner of the National Overall competition for Tidy Towns).
The weekend's results
Paris Marathon
931 Chris Burn 03:00:491573 Stuart Meiklejohn 03:08:412093 James Connell 03:13:08
4128 Henry Hamilton-Gould 03:25:226930 Louise Atkin 03:36:148029 Simon Hazel 03:40:0114040 Kathryn Creaney 03:56:42Brighton Marathon
David Hellard 03:14:56
Celine Murray 03:26:17Gavin Parish 03:52:31Agi Palanki 04:05:05Claire Sliwerski 04:09:55Eleanor Jones 04:09:01Sergio Di Noto 03:30:01
Lochaber Marathon271 Jane Stephens 04:23:01 Bungay Black Dog Half Marathon Results77 Crispin Bonham-Carter 1:43:17
Self Transcendence 10K12 Philip Bentley 36:2826 Sue Rust 38:41 City of Lincoln 10k53 Andrew Welshman 0:37:53376 Ed Bretten 0:43:57
Leamington Regency 10k220 Louisa Pointon 0:44:08
Woodford Green Open
800m2 Jacob Phillips 2:24.14 3000m 12 Michael Abrahams 11:55.86 SP 6k 2 Izaiah Turner 10.77
Eton Dorney Sprint DuathlonRunT1BikeT2RunTotal85 Sandra Buckton00:25:2600:00:5000:36:2700:01:0400:26:2001:30:10
This week's parkruns
Bushy parkrun
31 Paul LEMMON 00:18:44
Finsbury parkrun
1 Tom ALDRED 00:16:26
2 Adam KIRK-SMITH 00:16:58
4 Alex GALLOWAY 00:18:04
48 Russell WESTON 00:22:13
80 Raymond David WATTS 00:24:18
107 Sarah ILLINGWORTH 00:25:32
142 Victoria PHILLIPS 00:28:17
Hampstead Heath parkrun
3 John DRISCOLL 00:18:09
89 Karla DRINKWATER 00:25:44
95 Bob GOULD 00:26:12
130 Nessa JACKSON 00:28:41
Highbury Fields parkrun
3 David HELLARD 00:17:58
6 Samuel THOMPSON 00:18:28
8 Daniel MCKEOWN 00:18:44
30 Cathy JEREMIAH 00:20:47
68 Ben CLARKE-JANSSEN 00:26:06
Nonsuch parkrun
4 Andrew OSAMU BROOKER 00:17:13
Harrogate parkrun
6 Dominic JACKSON 00:19:07
Winchester parkrun
10 Tim MARSHALL 00:19:05
Ally Pally parkrun
7 Richard BUDD 00:21:10
Gladstone parkrun
6 Joseph MCKEOWN 00:18:47
Marlay parkrun
52 Ronan WALSH 00:21:35
Preston Park parkrun, Brighton
35 Mark DERRY 00:21:25
Westport parkrun
5 Michael ROONEY 00:20:22