London Marathon 2005

Fourteen Macclesfield Harriers took part in the London Marathon this year. Our best runner, Nicola Le Good achieved fame by appearing on BBC TV crossing the line at the time of the first male runners. Not only that, she also bested the club record and ran the 26.2 miles in an amazing 2:54:30. Well done, Nicola.

At the other end of the field, Claire Davenport-Eyre completed the famous course from Greenwich to the Mall in 6:01:38. This is an achievement of a different kind. The endurance runners in the club will know that to sustain concentration and keep going for 6 hours is not that easy. Well done Claire, your perseverance does you and the club proud.

The other twelve runners will have their own stories to tell, some pleased, some disappointed, however, we all deserve a big pat on the back as completing a marathon is the ultimate achievement for the road runner.

This table shows our results and split times (taken from the London Marathon website)

I've taken these splits, converted them to minutes and plotted them on this graph.

Marathon aficionados will know that the key to good marathon running is steady pace, ideally with the second half slightly quicker than the first. We have two examples of this in our club, Brian MacFadyen and Sabine Robinson. So you get the prizes for the most technically perfect piece on running.

As a rule of thumb you can predict your marathon time by doubling your best half marathon time and adding 20 minutes. Some people multiply the half marathon time by 2.2. I checked this out using results from our website, and came up with this graph.

As ever the event was superbly organised and if you are going to run one marathon this is the one. This year the route round the docklands was reversed to avoid the famous "cobbles". Personally, I felt this took something away from the event. I missed the view of the Tower of London, the support of the Beefeaters and the route reversal led to a crowded stretch from mile 14 to 16 which is the point at which you want some space to click into a steady pace and avoid any jostling.

As I said earlier, I planned this to be my last marathon. However, the slogan on the T-shirt says:

RUN TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT
NEVER AGAIN. TILL THE NEXT TIME
IT'S WHAT HAPPENS AFTER MARATHONS

So who knows what I'll do next year.

Vic Crawford