Lucy Jones of Herne Hill Harriers was determined not to repeat her experience from last year when after relatively little specific training she paced herself badly and suffered a painful final eight miles to finish in what had seemed a nevertheless creditable time of 2:52:54.
This year could hardly have been more different. The intervening period has seen a meteoric rise in her performances, including England selection at cross-country in January, fourth in the National cross-country championships in February, a course record at the Paddock Wood Half Marathon in March and the fastest time at the National Road Relay Championships earlier this month.
Seriously impressive, but whether all this could be translated into marathon success would be tested to the full and the 26-year-old passed with flying colours. She finished first female in the mass participation field, with a time of 2:30:23, an incredible 22 minutes and 31 seconds faster than the year before.
As well as annihilating her own PB, Jones took down the Harriers club women’s marathon record by more than eight minutes and, on a day when so many athletes suffered in the heat, she ran her second half faster than the first. A stark contrast to 2024 when she had found herself walking some of the final sections of the course.
A club athlete with a demanding day job, Jones was not only the best of the masses, but tellingly there were only two British full-time professional female athletes on the elite start who ran quicker than Herne Hill’s latest star turn. Both are current Great Britain internationals and Olympians.
A total of 46 Harriers completed the course. The first of these was new club member Matt Wood whose 2:27:03 secured him his first Herne Hill club championship title.
Australian Brandon Dewar was close behind with 2:27:31 and the third and final Harrier under 2:30 was Andrew Clarke with 2:29:46.
Gaby Reynolds, 43, was the second woman finisher from Harriers, claiming a club women’s silver medal with an impressive 2:41:48, a time which also saw her as the second W40 overall in the event.
The female podium was completed by Jenny Nandi (2:58:13), her sub-three hours debut being crowned after the race when her boyfriend Jamie Brown, who had finished a couple of minutes behind her made her day with a wedding proposal.
The men produced a good number of performances under three hours, as Max Rose clocked 2:30:29, followed by Ashley Goncalves 2:32:34, Oli Walker 2:34:52, Sam Brashaw 2:36:03, M45 Ben Millar 2:37:27, Lloyd Williams 2:37:28, Ronan Tanguy 2:41:10, Alex Russell 2:41:22, Ollie Mills 2:41:47, Fintan Kearney 2:44:05, John Cousins 2:46:13, Alex Lee 2:47:09, James Nutt 2:48:09, Myles Preston 2:49:32, Seve Loudon 2:49:46, Russell Drummond 2:50:44, M55 Muhamud Haile 2:55:39, M50 Jon Key 2:56:04, Eric Dol 2:59:04 and M40 Paul Calver 2:59:35.
More sub-3:30 women from the club included Charlotte Davies 3:01:02, Milli Simcock-Brown 3:03:20, Laura Donnelly 3:09:50, Hannah English 3:14:10, Tatiana Cooke 3:24:34 and Daisy Black 3:28:02 on a day when everyone who finished the race can feel extremely proud of their accomplishments.
PICTURE: BJORN PAREE
