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With over 4000 thousand runners lining up, it was congested at the start, and took a while for everyone to cross the line and get into their running. Like most races of this size, however, there was chip timing, providing the runners at the back a personal time from the start line to the finish. Samir Haddad was the first to show for the club, reaching the start just half a minute after the gun had sounded. An over-enthusiastic early pace saw him through 5 miles in 28:07, which would have brought him home in under 74 minutes. Despite slowing thereafter, his 77:40 was a personal best for the distance, as he finished a fine 19th overall. Chris Dettmar, last seen in an Ealing vest at the Southern Athletics League, ran in the colours of his first claim club Headington. Now in his 40s, he ran 78:39 to finish 26th, which is actually relatively modest by his standards! Seb Zajaczkowski’s 40th place in 80 minutes was a splendid performance from someone who rarely races the distance. Santosh Rai made his debut over the distance in an impressive 88 minutes, showing good strength endurance as he overtook a couple of club-mates in the second half of the race. Ian Leslie and triathlete Shona Cowper were other half marathon novices who notched up promising first times. Memuna Mataria improved her personal best with a sub-90 minute chip time, despite struggling in the later stages. Keith Freegard ran his fastest chip time, though he has run a slightly faster gun time elsewhere. Claudia Manera ran her best half marathon in ten years. Steve Morris ran two half marathons that day. In the afternoon he tackled the Windsor Half, which took him over half an hour longer to complete! Sadly, the Ealing Half Marathon experienced the death of a runner this year. He suffered a cardiac arrest during the race and died early on Wednesday morning, and our thoughts go out to his friends and family. The results summary below gives finish position and gun time, as some chip times have yet to be confirmed: 19 1:17:40 Samir Haddad; 40 1:20:02 Sebastien Zajaczkowski; 110 1:26:12 James Steel; 146 1:28:12 Mark Delahunty; 151 1:28:35 Santosh Rai; 192 1:29:40 Rob Brown; 208 1:30:00 Memuna Mataria; 265 1:32:49 Alex Perrin; 280 1:33:07 Ian Leslie; 507 1:38:15 Claudia Manera; 551 1:39:02 Darren Halford; 602 1:39:52 Steve Morris; 795 1:43:07 James O’Neill; 816 1:43:28 Keith Freegard; 846 1:43:56 Shona Cowper; 989 1:46:12 Jane Ruhland; 1026 1:46:51 Clive Richardson;1139 1:48:36 Yu Kawachi; 1207 1:49:35 Chris Brown; 1341 1:51:36 Christine Meek; 1379 1:51:53 Gosia Kucharska; 1737 1:56:28 Gary Stringer; 1760 1:56:52 Beverley Packwood; 2247 2:03:15 Martin Allen; 2897 2:03:15 Stephen Cliff; 3429 2:23:58 Laurence Messer; 3962 2:41:25 David Wiseman Full results here |
Twenty-eight ESM athletes completed the Ealing Half Marathon on Saturday, and Andy Dodd has posted some wonderful photos on the ESM Facebook page. All the club’s athletes found the warm conditions taxing as the race progressed, but despite this there were some excellent personal best and debut performances.