• Press Report 27th April 2009

    Ilford runners were out in force in Sunday's 29th running of the London Marathon where olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru smashed Martin Lel's one-year-old course record to win the 2009 in a personal best of 2:05:10 after a gripping battle with Ethiopia's Tsegaye Kebede who finished just 10 seconds behind.
    Robin McNelis was the pick of the Cricklefields contingent blasting home in a new personal best of 2:51:01. Also improving their previous best times were Ian Burdin with 3:33:23 and Tony Partridge 3:37:47, Bhagesh Katechia clocked a very good 3:38:08 ahead of Peter Spelman who found the warm weather not to his liking and was disappointed with his 3:56:36. Rohan Alexander was next in with 4:02:02 followed by Jon Masterson 4:16:03 and Chris Evans 4:35:06. Vinesh Kumar and Steve Port were both debutantes at the distance and recorded 5:18:40 and 7:03:02 respectively. Character and marathon regular Dave Sharpe pounded out 5.35.01 in race walking mode to raise a considerable sum for Cancer research
    Bree Nordin led the women home despite having to stop several times to stretch out from cramp from mile 19 onwards, forcing her to ease down in the latter stages of the race. Vanessa Burns cruised through only her 2nd marathon clocking an excellent 3.49.04, a time which obliterated her previous effort. Sally Gillam managed 4:10:43 despite some difficulties in her preparation.
    In the Womens elite race Irina Mikitenko (2:22:11) became the first woman since Paula Radcliffe in 2003 to retain her London Marathon as she held off a spirited challenge from Britain's Mara Yamauchi to win the third marathon of her career and cement her place as the world number one.
     
    Helping to hydrate over 35000 runners on Ilford's water station at the 19 mile point in Canary Wharf, Ilford's Steve Parker took a welcome rest having ran extremely well in the Boston Marathon the previous week. Parker reported that he was very pleased with his 3.22.11 over the hills of Massachusetts. 
     
    Earlier in the day the Club's juniors had performed well in the accompanying mini marathon held on a 3mile course starting at Old Billingsgate and finishing in the Mall. Alex Richard's posted the fastest Ilford time of the day finishing the course in 18.21 which placed him 127th in the 15-17 age group. Other times and positions were Dean Ulla 18.42 (79th in 13-14B), Thomas King 19.06 (31st in 11-12B), Jack Webb 19.10 (156th in 15-17B), George Hadler 21.05 (185th in 13-14B), Laura Swords 22.36 (92nd in 13-14G) and Lydia Hall 24.18 (144th in 15-17G).
     
    Elsewhere during the week Malcolm Muir arrived breathlessly on the starting line as the Serpentine 5k got underway,having run from work at Swiss Cottage to make the race.  Despite feeling his premature efforts quite severely in the early stages he ran very well to place 5th overall in a good time of 16:24, just pipping Springfield rival Mark Crook on the finish line in warm but breezy conditions.
     
    John Batchelor was rather disappointed with his run, with tiredness from recent hard training very evident in the legs. On a day otherwise conducive to fast times Batchelor placed 60th in only 19:19 (89.3% on the age-grading table).  Only by blazing the last 200m was he able to close a 40m gap and outdip Giorgio Bianchi, a 65-year-old Italian guest runner who threatened to deprive him of the age-group win.