Rosalind Kieran secured the club marathon championship at the London Marathon on Sunday with a fabulous time of 2.46.5. James Mason pipped Jeff Cunningham at the line for the mens title, both finishing on 2.38.33.
Rosalind has not run many races in our Herne Hill women’s team thus far, although a fine contribution to our South of England relay team’s recent 7th placing being one that had served notice of her fabulous effort to come in the London Marathon. Ros made the first concerted assault on a revered club record held by past president Clare Pauzers as she attacked a time of 2.43.27 with some gusto for much of the 26.2 miles. Hitting the half way mark in 1.21.17, Ros was on target for a new record and although she held things together better than I should most probably let on, her ultimate finishing time was a fanastic 2.46.53 to claim the 2011 HHH club marathon championship in placing 7th of the non elite women and given that only 5 British elite women finished ahead of those 7 this was an exceptional performance from a top quality HHH female athlete.
Our men did not compete at anywhere close to that level as in bygone years we have been well used to our members recording sub 2.20 or at least sub 2.30 times. This year we did not live up to those high standards, but that should take nothing away from an incredibly close race for our men’s club title in which James Mason defeated his club and corporate team mate Jeff Cunningham on the line as both clocked the same time of 2.38.33. Unbelievably the overall standards of current British marathon running allowed these performances to place as high as 133rd and 134th men, but that is not a problem that our guys should worry about as from the dreadful weakness in overall depth there are opportunities to be had for those with the planning and application and preparedness to put in the hard work necessary to succeed.
Our 3rd man home was Rajdave Singh, who went for it and didn’t quite hang on, but should still be happy enough with his 2.44.16, while our remaining HHH men in any sort of touch with the sharp end of the huge marathon field were Jonny Muir 2.50.23, John Kettle 2.59.03, Katy Yarnall 3.06.01, Rob Jacobs 3.07.09, Ed Barrow 3.07.31 and Karen Ellison 3.14.54. With apologies to those I will surely have missed, a couple of other selected finishers were Debbie Jackson 3.34.31 and Steph Mitchell 3.43.47. Well done to all who completed the distance and found out if they didn’t already know that it is a very long way to run.
London Marathon results are at this link:
http://results-2011.virginlondonmarathon.com/2011/index.php?pid=start