Marathon fever was hotting up in style this weekend for Ivanhoe Runners as 9 members participated in the Greater Manchester Marathon on Sunday. Their efforts with intensive training over the winter proved worthwhile with very impressive performances all round and a string of new personal bests. Fastest, and enjoying every minute as he came home in 90th place overall an incredibly quick time of 2:46:41 was Mike Trott, once again showing his true class.

Next home with another great run was Dave Hobbs, who set a fine new personal fastest time of 3:20:47 (1379th)   despite struggling in the latter stages. Ian Kirk was next running very strongly to beat his previous personal best and come home in 3:27:09 in  1774th place. Tim Sturla had a more leisurely race by his own standards having run a trial marathon the week before yet still finished in an impressive 3:39:03, next (2419th).

Julia Blewitt-Jenkins had the race of her life to knock some 16 minutes off her previous marathon PB as she finished in an excellent 3:42:02 (2915th overall, 364th lady) just ahead of Mark Eydman, who she had coached to his marathon debut. Mark had an excellent race to cross in 3:42:49 (2984th). Next came Jason Green who had faced a battle to get to the start line after picking up an injury at the Ashby 20. Despite this Jason had a fantastic race to smash his previous marathon time by over 40 mins as he finished in 3:55:18 (3974), the last Ivanhoe Runner under the 4 hour mark. Fiona McKean had a very strong race to set a great new personal best of 4:07:55 (4965th). Francesca Sinclair had a heavy fall in the early stages and managed to bravely push on to beat her previous personal best, finishing very well in 4:12:00 (5209th). Three Ivanhoe runners took on half of the route as they ran the half and half relay: Karen Bell (1:44:30) and Becca Hallam (1:42:53) ran the first leg before handing over to Andy Lindley (who posted the fastest time of 1:42:17) and SDDR runner Nikki Reeves,completing an excellent trip up North for the club.

Written by Ruth Green - last updated on 23/04/2015