Ilford AC's Malcolm Muir ran a superbly judged race in Sunday's Flora London Marathon leading Ilford's squad home in an excellent time of 2hrs 35 mins and 26 seconds to record 118th position overall. Muir's time sliced a massive 12 minutes from his previous personal best as he overtook  Springfield Strider's Gary Chandler in the latter stages of the race to become the first Essex man past the post. Muir's 10k split times were particularly consistent with his 20-30 k split of 35.40 being the fastest. Triathlete Matt Herbert in his first London chipped in with 3.06.37 with Peter Spelman also running a personal best of 3.27.19. Brian Somerlad, 64 years young, posted an incredible 3.39.40 while Ian Burdin and Sukhbindar Jandu both ran well recording 4.01.58 and 4.39.34 respectively. Walker Dave Sharpe thrilled the crowd by competing as a Greek soldier in 5.14.38.

 

In the women's race Bree Nordin ran through the pain of a hamstring injury clocking 3.25.06,  despite having to stop a couple of times along the embankment to stretch. Nicola Hopkinson was delighted with her run of 3.26.01, which also earnt her 131st in her age group, and Natasha Raynel dipped under the 4 hour mark with 3.56.08.

 

There were also some very good performances by 6 Ilford AC junior athletes in the mini marathon on a miserable wet morning. In the 13-14 Girls Lydia Hall finished 57th in a time of 18.40 mins followed by Madeline Thompson in 106th in 19.45 mins. In the 15-17 Girls Maria Whitfield completed the course in 23.59 mins in 117th place followed by Laura Townsend, 168th in 26.17 mins. Representing the boys were Liam Leddy in the 13-14 age group finishing in 133rd in a time of 17.28 mins and Iain MacDonald, in his last mini marathon,  in the 15-17 age group finishing in 80th place in a time of 15.18 mins.