BOURNEMOUTH AC ROAD AND
DISTANCE RUNNING INFORMATION
Here is a a report from the 2008 London
Marathon. Click here
to go back to our main index page.
London Marathon
BAC round up *14/4/08
Capital Gains
- I don't often write these race reports in the first person, but I'm sat
here contemplating exactly where to begin in constructing a round up of the
day's performances. However much it annoys me that non-runners can't see
past the marathon (or the London Marathon for that matter) when
talking athletics, it's days like Sunday that epitomise why the distance is
the pinnacle of endurance running.
It's days like Sunday and fine
performances from top to bottom, throughout BAC and across Dorset, that make
me proud to be involved in local athletics and to captain this club. We
await England AAA team results with baited breath hoping for a top ten
finish. But the last three months has been a real team effort both on and
off the track (metaphorically speaking) from our eight finishers and
everybody involved in the road running side of the club.
Stuart Fox - 46th (27th Brit) - 2:29:13
Stu has been nothing short of a revelation since joining the club. We all
knew he could run and we all knew club training had put him on an upward
curve, but what a stunning performance to lead the team home. As Nigel
Harding wrote in his press report, "Achieving a massive 12 minute
improvement since last year, he placed 46th in the men's race which suggests
he might progress to international honours in this event." And don't
forget twelve minutes at that level is remarkable.
Dorset's number one ran the quickest BAC
marathon time since Mark Hargreaves four years ago. Having fallen from the
pace in last year's London, Stu showed how much more of a complete athlete
he is dropping just 27 seconds and pacing the race much better than more
experienced athletes at his level.
Ian White - 157th (127th Brit) - 2:38:21
Let us try to gleam some perspective here. This is a man who has just
completed 26.2 miles three seconds a mile quicker than a ten mile race in
January that Ian declared himself happy with. Expect the PBs to keep rolling
as we hit the summer and target some shorter races.
Ian has set a PB at every warm up race
going into the marathon and an ambitious starting pace paid dividends going
from strength to strength.
Jon Sharkey - 164th (134th Brit) - 2:38:57
The day after the race before and what sticks out in my mind? Well nothing
that happened in the last six weeks. For me it's two key moments of training
both of which emphasise the importance of training as a team. The first was
pure damn laziness on my part. Feeling tired on a Saturday morning I
informed Ian White that I was planning an easy day. He cajoled me into a
tempo run so I did. And it went well, one more quality session in the bag.
The second was that day on the
Purbecks when we were ten minute miling along the beach. Up top conditions
worsened and I was in a bad way. It's a long run I wouldn't have finished
without the support of James and Ian. Do I begrudge Ian for coming past me
having beaten him in every warm up race all be it narrowly? Not one bit,
it's the aforementioned moments in training which creep runners underneath their goal
target.
Ian Graham - 1,487th (8th M60) - 3:06:02
This was Ian's third 'last marathon' and if there isn't a fourth he's signed
off at the top level of national marathon running. Ian's time, once again
consummately paced, earned him a top ten age category finish - the only male
runner in Dorset to achieve that feat.
In age grading the results Stuart still
comes out top, but Ian was less than 1% behind in second place.
Paul Consani - 5,678th - 3:36:02
I personally feel Paul showed a great deal of courage to even start this
race; maybe the debutant didn't know what lay ahead!! In a period of time
that saw yours truly rack up 700 miles worth of training, Paul did virtually
nothing.
An encouraging Milborne 10 left Paul
eyeing a sub 3hr 30 marathon, but a niggling Achilles problem dogged the
best part of two months preparation time. Worse was to come when Paul felt
the injury return just twelve days prior to the race. Despite all the
setbacks, Paul only dropped six minutes against his target time.
Matt Kiernan - 22,000th - 4:40:16
Finally from our regular training group, what can we say Matt Kiernan?
Calling a spade a spade we had serious reservations about whether Matt could
do this. But he settled into the training, worked hard and thoroughly
deserves the adulation. Stu, Ian and I have all run marathons before.
Modifying training and going that little bit quicker is relatively
straightforward, it just requires a lot of hard work. Diving into the
unknown and completing something completely new is an achievement in itself
uncomparable to any PB.