The penultimate weekend in October holds one of the most popular autumnal marathon’s in the Gade Valley Harriers’ calendar – the Abingdon Marathon. This year eleven Harriers travelled to the Oxfordshire town for the flat, fast road race on a cool, dry Sunday morning. Starting at the athletics track and then heading into local countryside, before being treated to sights of neighbouring town’s business parks and industrial estates, competitors completed the race with a lap of the track. The Harriers were led across the finish line by Julian Smith, who was taking part in his second marathon in three weeks, and picked up a personal best (PB) with another exemplary time of 2:48:39.
Simon Wallis completed the two-lap course in 3:08:07, ahead of Matt Ashby, who was running 26.2-miles for the first time, and recorded a time of 3:09:34.
Andy Cook suffered with a hip problem for the last six miles but still managed to finish in 3:13:29, just ahead of Nicholas Crowther (3:13:46).
Ross Deacon (3:15:52) and Antony Beamish (3:18:37) both picked up PBs, and Phil Mercer (3:23:40) crossed the line ahead of Gareth Tucker (3:37:23), who completed his maiden marathon.
Kirstie Hardiman (4:15:55) was the sole lady from the club, and she picked up a PB by finishing ahead of Roland Kendall (around 4:30).
Further afield, Bev Loczy took part in the Amsterdam Marathon, and picked up a PB of 4:20:18.
Leona Flaherty took part in the River Thames based Water of Life Half Marathon, and finished in a course PB of 2:08:54.
