Three Loiter in Langdale

Well, if you knew what time I did, you'd say I was loitering!

TF and the Bros travelled up to the New Dungeon Ghyll on Saturday, YJ to do the Marathon, me to do the Half and TF just to roam the fells until we reappeared.

The races were scheduled to start at 11:00 but both were delayed until 11:30. To some extent this was because folk were still queueing to collect numbers, but also, possibly to let the worst of the rain clouds blow over. This latter aspect worked quite well, but it was still raining when to gun went and many of us found ourselves over-dressed when the rain did clear about 30 minutes later.

The full distance involved two laps of the Half Marathon course and as I plodded my way round to an all time PW I began to worry that I would be lapped by the front end of the 'big' race. However, despite my concern I managed to finish a full 30 minutes ahead of the first marathoner, Shaun Livesey of Blackburn Harriers who clocked 3:09. First lady was the unattached Janet Dickson, 9th overall in a time of 3:36.

YJ beat the first M65 by two minutes. There was no M70 finisher and our man picked up the M75 prize, clocking a time of 4:33, placing 48th out of a field of 85, on what is reckoned to be the toughest road marathon in the UK.

An interesting feature of the Jon Schofield results is the inclusion of a comparison of each completer's time with the world record for their age. With the results sorted into that order YJ ranked 8th overall with a score of 65.61% - that's the world record, divided by the individual's time, expressed as a percentage. Seems like somewhere there's a 75 year old who's run a sub 3:00! You'll have to do more miles, John!

TF also seemed to have enjoyed her day, and despite snoring all the way home, insisted she was just resting her eyes.