THE 37th London Marathon saw the largest Dursley Running Club entry for many years with 17 athletes on the start line of the iconic race.

Along the way, another four runners had succumbed to injury or illness which prevented their attendance.

The marathoners were blessed with almost ideal conditions. The sizzling conditions of Saturday were not repeated, and the air temperature was cool and the sun generally hidden by cloud.

The elite women’s race starting before the elite men and the mass start set a template for the rest of the day with the leaders taking it out very fast.

Mary Keitany ran the fastest ever half marathon in a marathon and then broke the 30K world record before the early pace told on her.

Despite slowing she maintained her control, finishing in a time of two hours 17:01mins which is a world record for a “women’s only race” but still not quick enough to beat Paula Radcliffe’s world record.

Behind her, Tirumesh Dibaba posted the third quickest ever woman’s marathon time.

The elite men started more conservatively, with rumours that Keneisha Bekele would attempt to break the world record, and the early pace suggested this was possible.

However, Bekele started to struggle as they ran past the halfway mark and the Kenyan Daniel Wanjiri pulled away to open up a gap on his competitors that he was able to maintain to the finish.

Earlier, David Weir sprinted to his seventh victory on the men’s wheelchair race.

The Dursley runners followed the template provided by the elite, which is partly explained by the course profile which drops after the first mile until levelling out at around the four-mile mark.

Mike Crompton and Robyn Jackson were favourites to be first men and woman home for Dursley and started briskly with a six mins 21 secs and six mins 31 secs pace for the first 5K.

Mark Brasier, who had also been showing some excellent form going into London, was not far behind with a slightly more conservative pace of seven minutes 13 seconds.

Crompton’s training and racing prior the event had shown he was developing both the speed and stamina to produce a good run, and his early pace gave him the possibility of a two hours fifty minutes finish.

His pace over the first 16 miles was fairly metronomic, varying by only nine seconds.

As with many running, the distance started to erode Crompton’s pace in the remaining miles. But despite this he produced the best Dursley RC marathon performance for many years with a two hours 54 minutes effort, improving on Neil Parry’s sub three hours back in 2013.

Behind him, Robyn Jackson was able to hold her pace over the second half slightly better and she ran home in just under three hours, placing 57th in her age category out of almost nine thousand runners, putting her in the top one per cent of this group, and 71st woman overall.

With both breaking three hours, it was looking like a great day’s running ahead for Dursley.

Mark Brasier confirmed his good form, running almost two and half minutes faster than he previous best at London, and just missed out getting under 03:10, producing a good for age result in the process.

Two other DRC runners producing good for age results were Neil Parry, DRC’s “Marathon Man” who came home in 03:18:16, returning after a two-year hiatus, behind him with one of the standout runs was Tony Woodridge, finishing in 03:24:52, finishing 12th in the M65-69 category having qualified good for age in 2016.

Five DRC runners finished within the top 20% of their category, Robyn Jackson in the top 1% of W18-35, Wooldridge top 5%, Crompton top 7%, with Parry and Brasier finishing off the quartet. Next home was Mark Sprigings who made a big effort of the last 12k to come home in just over 03:35 and in the top quartile of his age group raising money for Well Child in the process. Behind these runners DRC had a number of Marathon and London Marathons virgins, some there for the challenge, some raising money for good causes and some doing both.

Emma Denton continued her “40 at 40” Challenge for the charity RP Blindness. The impact of running 40 races in a year has mean Denton was not in a position to train for London and this resulted in a huge effort for her over the final miles to finish in 03:52 some way off her personal best. Behind Denton there was a flurry of Dursley Runners crossing this line over four hours.

The group was headed by Damien Lai (04:16) running for the British Lung Foundation, with Neil Baldwin running for Anthony Nolan the cancer charity, just behind. Both graduates of DRCs Walk2Run programme and the programme clearly paid dividends for Baldwin who ran the best second half relative to his first half time closest of the DRC runners to manage a negative split having run a 02:07 first half, Tony Wooldridge and Robyn Jackson the next closest.

Holly Gardner produced a good effort running for the charity Well Child, Julian Peachy benefiting from one of the Clubs ballot entries ran a controlled race to finish just ahead of Rednock’s Ian Cole who was raising money for MIND. 

Shona Darley running for Asthma UK was next home in 04:48, achieving one of her running dreams and producing an incredible effort both to train and run the event as she has ME, she said “London didn't disappoint.

"For 34 years, I've dreamt of running it. It's was awesome!!!” With her on the finish line was Dave Saunders, another marathoner, foregoing a competitive run, he donned a post-box costume for the 26 miles, to complete the run raising money for Longfield Hospice. Rose Stephenson and Rob Woodward followed them in; Stephenson a novice and Woodward a veteran marathoner and Ironman were both pleased to complete the event.

The Club’s Lanterne Rouge was Steve Barnes, Barnes has been raising money for Cancer Research in memory of his mother has had a troubled preparation with a niggling hamstring followed by a chest infection, so it was a herculean effort to complete the 26.3 course in 05:42:07