London Marathon Preview

Ian, Jon & Mike when they were younger

In November last year, ten Richmond and Zetland Harriers were making plans to run in the 2005 London Marathon - the biggest event on the world marathon stage. There were 49,000 places in the marathon. Approximately half the number was bought by charities with their golden bonds schemes; a best guess was that 1,500 places were set aside for overseas runners, for Championship entrants, for those good for their age (GFA) and for last year’s injured athletes plus another 2,000 places for affiliated Clubs to distribute. This left some 89,000 applicants with their fingers crossed for one of about 21,000 remaining places. Club has two athletes running in the UKA Championships; Jon Orange qualified with his 2:31:05 set in last year’s race and Rachel Ross Russell by virtue of her 1:19:18 half marathon best, set in the Robin Hood at Nottingham in September last year. Additionally, Mike Brooks qualified as GFA when he clocked 3:04:22 last year and Ian Hepworth was guaranteed his place when he deferred, injured, last year.

Six Harriers went into the LM ballot and just one, Grete Buck, came up lucky. The names of the unfortunate five went into the hat for one of two Club places and Colin Sewell and Tony Hewson made good in the second ballot. Of the remaining three, Sarah Gregory and Shaun Purkiss opted to accept charity places but Chris Lamb, newly demobbed and starting a new career with Darlington Borough Council, decided that running in an alternative marathon might be a better move.

In December last year, the nine Harriers with London Marathon places set about their training with renewed enthusiasm, increasing the length of their long runs and their total mileage whilst continuing with one track session each week. Unfortunately, there’s a fine line between optimum training and overdoing things, between best fitness and injury and, as all runners know, the line is invisible. Grete was the first to fall, laid low by a foot injury, and has deferred until 2006 - the injured toe won’t stop her running with Keva (her black Labrador training partner) but makes 26.2 miles just a bit too far. Sarah was next to feel the downside of marathon training when a pain in her leg was diagnosed as a stress fracture - not life threatening but ambition denting, until Sarah said no to London and yes to Berlin in September.

And then there were seven. Jon has upped his weekly mileage past 80 miles and doesn’t want to talk about 4th place in the M40 category for the third consecutive year. Rachel came home from skiing in the New Year with a sore calf muscle which has restricted both the quantity and quality of her training - she knows time doesn’t stand still, less than 2 months to the big day. Shaun Purkiss, Club marathon record holder with 2:27:19 from the Langbaugh Marathon at Redcar in 1991, elected to take a place offered by SportsAid and now has a multiple whammy - home and work, training and raising up to £1000 for charity - but he has the ability to do the business and, 13 years after his last marathon, to break the 3 hour mark. Mike had a blip over the Xmas/New Year break, which resulted in his worst-ever Yorkshire X-C Championships, but he has put this behind him, has run long and hard and he also has an eye on the magic 3 hour mark. Colin is enjoying his best form for some considerable time; having left the RAF last year and taken a temporary job through last summer, he is now passing more people than he could’ve imagined, is leading the M50 category in the NYSD X-C League and has just embarked on a 4 week tour of Australia which will include some quality warm weather training. Tony has quite a job on his hands too, fitting-in his training around the time needed to run The Priory Guesthouse and Restaurant in Middleham; he is managing to clock-up the miles whilst not turning away any guests but his crystal ball doesn’t reach the marathon weekend! Last, but never least, Club Treasurer Ian Hepworth will be embarking on his twelfth London Marathon, taking-up the place he deferred from 2004 after injury put a stop to his 11 year streak; although Ian’s knees are not so young and he isn’t making any predictions about his finishing time, he is the first to venture that running keeps you fit.