Runners tackle Marathon

All of the almost two dozen Ryston Runners who raced last weekend travelled out of county to do so, with the majority heading north for the Manchester Marathon.There a club record fell to Dawn Robinson, who laid the ghost of her previous less-than-successful marathon experience by blasting around the course in 3:07:21 to finish 10th F35 (46th woman overall/3,012th in the race) and setting a new club age group best as well as putting herself second on the club’s female marathon rankings.Only two of the club’s runners finished ahead of Dawn, new member Dom Howlett making an impressive marathon debut with 2:57:17 (763rd/389thSM) and Dan Yallop, who ran 2:58:25 for 896th place/186thM35).Also making their debuts over the distance, Darren Easter ran 3:14:22 to place 112thM50/2,260 overall, and Chris Chaplin 3,012th/545thM35 in 3:21:49. Coming in under four hours were Owen Jary (4,494th/257thM50/3:31:48), Luke Jarvis (5,704th/2,373rdSM/3:39:57), George Pettit (6,454th/391stM50/ 3:44:25), and Kevin Moulton (8,349th/698thM45/3:54:41).Tiegan Moore finished just the “wrong” side of four hours, but still ran impressively, to finish with 4:00:28 for 9822th place/866thSF. The clock had just ticked over to five hours when Anna Smith finished in 18167th/500thF45 in 5:00:17. Shortly after, Hazel Caswell finished in 5:06:47 for 18689th place overall and 564thF35, then Molly Sands completed the Ryston contingent in just under six hours, 3223rdSF and 21043rd overall with 5:54:48.The field for the Run for All Lincoln 10K was a fifth of the size of that in Manchester (fewer than 4000 compared with almost 23000) but that did not prevent at least one of the five Ryston Runners on the start list from missing the start due to congestion. This meant that Adam Matthews, despite running the 32nd fastest time in the field (34:57) ended up placing 173rd and clocked in at 40:26 in gun to tape times.Finishing ahead of him, Oliver Foxwell placed 88th/68thSM with 38:08, and Gavin Reynolds ran 39:27 for 141st/99thM35, and just after Gareth Hunt placed 205th/129thSM in 41:31. Julia Norman’s 52:35 gave her 64th place in the F45 category and 1393rd overall.There were only two Ryston Runners AC members who checked in with results from other races on the same day. At the Bungay Festival of Running Christopher Cann ran 1:41:08 for 46th place/21stSM in the Half Marathon and Gina Hurrell won the F60 category in the 10K/98th overall with 49:36.Jane Ashby and Keith Morris, meanwhile, had travelled to Flitwick to battle the formidable hills of the EMAC 10K course, where Jane ran 53:18 for 2nd place in the F65+ category, giving her an almost 90% Age Grading towards her campaign to win this year’s EMAC Road Race series. Keith (M60) completed the course in 84:50 for 603rd place overall.