Tracy Barlow secures GB European Champs spot at London Marathon

Posted on 27 April 2018 |

Tracy Barlow 2:32:28 to take second in the English Championships at London Marathon 2018. Photo credit: Keith McClure

Tracy Barlow guaranteed her place in this summer’s European Championships after her ninth place finish and placing second British lady at the Virgin Money London Marathon.

Tracy has had a great winter, recently breaking her half marathon club record when representing GB at the world half marathon championships and running the quickest long leg at the national road relays. In such fantastic form, Tracy was hoping to go better than her two hours, 30 minutes and 42 seconds achieved from last year’s race and was well on pace with a 74 minutes first half but the tough warm conditions prevented her running a new personal best time.

Afterwards Tracy said “I was hoping for sub 2:30 but in those conditions, I think I am happy with how it went’’.

Tracy was pleased to get to the finish and settle for her second best marathon time of 2:32:09, which was well inside the 2:36:00 qualifying mark for the Euros that takes place in Berlin, Germany.

We will now look forward to seeing Tracy competing at some shorter distances on the road and on the track where she will help TVH defend their UKWAL title before heading to Berlin this August to be part of a six strong British women’s team in the European Marathon Cup.

Anna Lawson was TVH’s first lady home in the masses race. Anna race an impressive 3:17:21, a huge personal best over her 3:28.51 set in Dublin two years ago.

TVH also had eight men running at the London marathon. Simon Prigent had a brilliant run to come home first TVH athlete and 37^th overall in new lifetime best time of 2:31:29, next home was James Ellis just 1 minute down on his best time with 2:39:36. Ryan Keane who is getting quicker with every race ran a well-judged race for a new PB of 2:46:57 with Sage Higgins-Pearce just 14 seconds behind also in a PB. Jonathon Baird missed out on his PB by 20 seconds with his strong 2:58:24. Experienced marathon runner Paul Woodgate ran his second quickest time over the marathon with 3:08:44, finishing just ahead of London marathon debutant, Naol Abagibe, who ran 3:09:26. TVH’s final finisher was Rizwan Rauf in 5:15:26 for TVH’s sixth PB of the day.