New York Marathon
JON LEIGH, Nick Kimber and Darrell Milner hit the Big Apple at the weekend and the fruity trio were grapeful for some excellent times to enjoy a peach of a marathon, and a right ole fruit salad at the finish.
For Jon, he’s been promising a fast marathon time for some while and but for an unfortunate injury just weeks before the London Marathon earlier this year, he would have surely hit pay dirt.
Well, Jon well and truly delivered on the streets of New York with a stunningly quick time of 3hrs 21mins 56sec and an average of 7min 42sec per mile. Jon went through half way in 1:38.16 running a steady 7.30min pace, and 20 miles in 2:31.02, before slowing over the final 10km.
Nick Kimber came close to breaking his marathon pb of 3:22 set in London earlier this year. He clocked 3:25.51 for 3,715th overall and an average of pace of 7min 51sec per mile.
Not far behind them both was Darrell Milner, completing his third marathon of the year after the Shakespeare and New Forest Marathons. Darrell finished in 3:37.55 for 6,318th place.
While Jon, Nick and Darrell were toiling away through the boroughs of New York, defending champion Paula Radcliffe was storming to victory ahead of Ludmila Petrova and Kara Goucher of the United States.
She became the second woman to win the race three times, but unlike her 2004 and 2007 wins this was by a big margin. Her time was two hours, 23 minutes, 56 seconds, nearly two minutes ahead of the 40-year-old Petrova.
Brazil’s Marilson Gomes dos Santos won the men's race, with Abderrahim Goumri of Morocco second, followed by Kenyan Daniel Rono.
Dos Santos fell off Goumri's pace in the 20th mile but surged ahead in Central Park to win in an unofficial time of 2:06:43, with Goumri runner-up for the second year in a row in 2:07:08.
Click here for photos.