Celeb hanidcaps - the climbers and fallers in London
The Virgin London Marathon saw 34,171 runners cross the finish line on Sunday and every single one of you have a runbritain handicap score!
Thanks to one and all who visited our stand at the Marathon Expo. We hope you had a great run and are pleased with your new handicap score. We promised to report back on how the celebs got on, so here are those we previewed and a few more besides. The marathon seems to be the optimum distance for some and the nemisis of others:
The climbers
Tony Audenshaw had an amazing run and crossed the finish line in 3:08:35 taking his handicap score down from 8.1 to 7.5. A brilliant and very consistent performance! This is one celeb who loves the marathon and the marathon loves him!
Katherine Jenkins. We are delighted to have Katherine back on our radar. She ran the Swansea Bay 10k in 2010 and got herself a handicap score of 32.4 but, with not racing for more than two years, it crept up to 36.0. On Sunday she clocked a very credible 5:26:42 and knocked it down to 34.0. Come on Katherine, let's see more of you on the racing scene and see what you can do to that handicap score!
The fallers
Sophie Raworth finished in 3:44 which unfortunately pushed her handicap score up a whisker from 12.0 to 12.1 but, interviewed by the BBC she said that she had found the last eight miles difficult even though she stuck to the pace that she knew she could run after completing 21 miles at a pace close to it in training. STOP PRESS - please see below.
Kelly Sotherton. It would appear that Kelly is more suited to a quick sprint around a 5k parkrun than the marathon. Going into Sunday's event she had a handicap score of 22.1 from a 26 minute parkrun performance but her score has gone up to 22.5 after crossing Sunday's finish line in 4:28:52.
Sian Williams stopped at 11 miles when someone had fallen over in front of her. She waited with her fellow runner until the emergency services arrived but this meant that she didn't get the time that she hoped for. She finished in 4:26:45 and unfortunately pushed her handicap score up from 19.6 to 21.2 but, interviewed on the BBC, she said it wasn't about the race but about the camaraderie, triumph of the human spirit and running back and helping people. Well done Sian!
We hadn't spotted Andrew when we did our preview but he was there, in force, raising money for the Lord's Taverners. Andrew ran the marathon in 3:31:52 but he had a tough challenge to bring his handicap score down because it was set at an impressive 10.8 after a superb performance at the Reading Half Marathon. Unfortunately for Andrew his handicap has gone up to 11.7
The stallers
Iwan Thomas - All that way and the handicap score hasn't moved a jot! Iwan is on 5.9, which is where he has been since the beginning of March. He has been a regular at the Netley Abbey parkrun and, although his handicap score hasn't moved this weekend, it has come down considerably over the last three years through consistent racing at the shorter events.
STOP PRESS
24/4/2013
With further investigation it appears that Sophie Raworth's handicap score did not move up as a result of her marathon performance but because some of her best times were from last year and they had started to attract the bit extra we add to the handicap scores to downgrade older performances over newer ones so that the handicap best reflects recent performances.
This was her best performance in any long race - worth 14.5 on it's own. Last year's marathon was worth 16.7 so that's a good improvement and actually the differential reflects the overall improvement in her handicap in the last year!
Apologies to Sophie for any concern caused! ;)