Ten locals take in Edinburgh’s ‘fast’ marathon

Gainsborough Morton Striders who are taking part in the Edinburgh Marathon G130524-2

Seven of the group were making their debut at the 26.2 mile distance, and some of the times recorded showed great potential for the club.

Considered to be the fastest marathon course in Britain, Scotland’s major city marathon lived up to its reputation.

Luke Mathews was the first Strider to cross the finish line, in a superb debut marathon time of 2.58.58 secs.

Next Strider home was the ladies club captain, Lorna Allison, also running her debut marathon, in a magnificent 3:31:27.

Paul Dagg, recovering from a slight injury, ‘paced’ Allison to the second fastest time by a female Strider and the fastest since 1996.

Chris Litherland, another debutant, ran the most even paced race of the Striders contingent.

He reached the halfway point, 13.1 miles, in 1 hour 52 minutes and maintained this consistency to cover the second half of the race in 1hour 54 minutes, to record a finishing time of 3:46:54.

Two new Striders, Richard Wilcox and Mark Rodgers, made their first appearance in club colours and recorded times of 3:39:50 and 3:50:37 respectively.

Rodgers actually improved his personal best by almost one hour from the time he recorded at the 2010 London Marathon race.

Craig Ward ran 3:53:16 and Sophie Wood recorded a splendid 4:07:42, both in their first outings at the distance.

Two more lady Striders, Gemma Wright and Kim Metcalfe showed plenty of determination to finish the race in times of 4:26:30 and 5:54:34 respectively.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the UK, Stephen Toward competed in the Bupa London 10K race.

Toward covered the course, one lap of the 2012 London Olympic marathon course, which started and finished on The Mall, in a personal best time of 52.26.

Phil Kitchen, a founder member of the Gainsborough and Morton Strikders Athletics Club and former GB International, continued his recovery from a life-threatening medical condition, running 21.27 in the Brueton Park (Solihull) 5K parkrun.

Kitchen has knocked four minutes off his 5K time in only three weeks.