Tracy Barlow smashes club record in London Marathon

TVH turned out in force for the London Marathon and the day was crowned by a spectacular performance from Tracy Barlow who sliced no less than 11 minutes from her own club record to clinch a magnificent 4th place in the mass start race.

Andrew Mitchell reports: 

On a near-perfect day for marathon running – cool, dry and overcast – Tracy set off with a clear plan and stuck like a limpet to her race pace throughout. Remarkably, every 5k split was between 3:47/km and 3:49/km. “It certainly got tough in the last few miles but I managed to dig deep and keep focused,” she said

Tracy’s time of 2:39:56 – a massive step up from her previous club record of 2:51:29 in Berlin in September – was barely three minutes behind Paul Radcliffe and good enough to finish in the top 300 overall.

There were plenty of other fine TVH performances to report with Christian Nielsen recording a new PB of 2:53:01, a strong showing from Peter Hill at 3:10:44 and Paul Woodgate also setting a new best of 3:13:26.

Manuel da Silva went off hard and was going well at up to halfway but suffered badly in the closing stages from blisters and a lost toenail. Andrea Broughton broke the four hour mark to record 3:57:10 while Lizzy Sisley came in at 4:03:56 and Calum Templeton at 4:47:35 .

A special mention for Victoria Carter who ran in doctor’s gown and stethoscope and still finished under 3:15 !