Ilford Athletic Club's star turn in Sunday's 2008 Flora London Marathon came from superveteran, Breege Nordin, who ran a superb race to finish 3rd in the women's over 50 category in an excellent time of 3hrs 13mins and 59 seconds. Nordin declined the opportunity to run with the elite women this year, often a lonely journey, preferring instead to run with a group of the mass start's faster athletes to maintain a more even pace. Two other noteworthy performances came from the McNelis husband and wife team with Robin running a storming 2.53.53 and Nikki breezing through the line in 3.48.14. Both were delighted with times well under their previous bests for the distance.
In the city where the marathon distance of 26 miles 385 yards was first established at the 1908 Olympics, more than 34,000 people finished the 1000th anniversary of the race from 35,044 starters. This makes the 2008 race the third biggest of the 28 London Marathons held since it started in 1981 as
Martin Lel won his third Flora London Marathon title in a course record of 2.05.15 leading 3 men under 2.06 for the greatest in-depth men’s marathon in history. The surprise winner of the womens race was Irina Mikitenko in 2.24.14 after pre race favourite Gete Wami suffered an earlier fall.
Malcolm Muir was predictably the first runner home for the club but was far from happy with his 2.46.53 clocking, proclaiming to his clubmates even as early as the waterstation at 19 miles that his race was not going well.
Steve Parker chipped in with a fine performance and his time of 3.10.49 earned him a highly respectable 102nd position in the MV50 category. Matt Herbert going for a time around 3 hours was some way adrift with 3.18.20 paying the price of not racing much recently. Ilford's racewalking fraternity was well represented with both Micky Sutton and Steve Allen running the race in good times of 3.25.11 and 3.32.43 respectively whilst Dave Sharpe kept to the walking discipline with 5.20.28 just behind Helen Hooper 5.19.04. Two very solid runs came from Keith Ennis who weighed in with 3.27.03 and Tony Partridge 3.41.50 . Bhagesh Katechia and Trevor Moore were competing in London under the Ilford banner for the first time and finished in 3.43.49 and 4.00.32. Anthony Richards, 72 years young, also completed the course 5.56.37.
Harriers John Masterson, Vanessa Apps, and Gurdip Dhami are to be congratulated on some brilliant performances considering all 3 had started training from scratch at the beginning of the year and had their schedules heavily interrupted by injury. John returned a time of 4.32.54 with Vanessa not far behind in 4.38.48 and Gurdip enjoying his day with 4.48.47.
The accompanying mini marathon gave the youngsters a chance to savour the atmosphere of the day as 8 athletes from Ilford AC represented the local boroughs throughout the age groups over a 3 mile course finishing in The Mall. The outstanding success for Redbridge came in the 11-12 boys as Ilford's Thomas King performance of 20th place in 19.04 helped the Borough to 1st place. Other times and category places were :- Alex Richards (55th 13-14) 18.31, Jack Webb (138th 15-17) 18.52, Liam Leddy (152nd 15-17) 19.11, Ali Jare Gawow (90th 15-17) 17.59, George Hadler (148th (11-12), Emma Light (141st) 23.48., Lydia Hall (132nd) 23.31.
