Five Ryston Runners members clock under three hours at the London Marathon

The big athletic focus event of the weekend, as far as road runners are concerned, was the TATA London Marathon, which featured, among its 50000 participants, some 20 Ryston Runners.Five of them finished in under three hours, with the fastest time being clocked by Paul Keaney, who ran 2:50:46, a PB in only his second marathon.In close order after Paul came Dan Guppy, in 2:51:20, and John Hopgood, 2:52:21.Matthew Thrower, 2:56:54 and Rob Skillings completed the sub-three quintet with 2:58:04.Warren Armstrong, 3:10:52, and James Ord, 3:19:27 finished next from the club before Lesley Robins claimed her spot as first Ryston woman home, her time of 3:20:36 denying her a new club F50 record by a minute. But as the existing record is her own, she was proving her incredible consistency.Lee Johnson clocked 3:24:12 before Kirsty Butters recorded a PB of 3:28:06, Jurgita Javaisene ran 3:28:4, and Julie Williamson finished within the same minute, recording a 10-second PB of 3:28:44. Hayley Hawes, after a long lay-off recovering from a stress fracture incurred in last year’s GEAR 10k, was delighted to be running again, and even more pleased to have completed the course in 3:37:29.Beth Shaw, running her second marathon in a fortnight, took the streets of London a bit more easily than those of Paris, but still clocked 3:40:00. The last Ryston Runner to cross the line under four hours after setting off from Greenwich was Jake Whitehouse, who ran 3:48:46.Eamonn McCusker, who last year completed his 100th marathon, showed he has no intention of stopping just yet, and clocked 4:16:56. Pauline Drewery ran 4:28:37, and Lucy McDowie, making her marathon debut, 4:34:13, having run the first half with clubmate Judith Berry, who finished in 4:54:59.Molly Hopgood not only achieved her time target but set a PB of 4:55:54, raising more than £3500 for the Alzheimer’s Society in the process.Just missing the five-hour mark by a whisker, Charlotte Smith was still very pleased with her debut marathon time of 5:00:33.Another debutant, who joined the club after last year’s “Get into GEAR” sessions, Christopher Brockbank mastered the course in 5:52:12, an inspiration to who knows how many prospective marathoners from this year’s sessions, which have regularly attracted more than 150 runners ahead of next week’s event.