On Sunday 29th September, four LBAC members made the journey to London, to run the second Ealing Half Marathon, along with nearly 6000 other runners.  The weather was mild and dry, perfect running conditions to tackle the route which takes in the beautiful parks of West London, and the streets (some quite hilly) of Ealing and Hanwell.

 

The atmosphere was fun and friendly and, although not a cheap race to enter (£27), it was well worth the effort.  The streets and parks were virtually all lined with cheering spectators, and the water stations well manned at the churches in the borough.  Organisation of the whole event was excellent, and rather good looking medals for the finishers too.

 

This was Lorraine H-M’s second time at Ealing, with trainer Tom May attempting to pace her, along with Mark Haynes, around in under 2 hours.  The 4th member was Joe Hurley, but no-one saw him for dust!

 

Nerves were a little frayed at the start line. Lorraine was carrying a couple of injuries from early Summer and she had had her pelvis manipulated only a few days beforehand. Meanwhile Mark was full of a heavy cold…pills were being popped whilst lining up!

 

The first few miles went exceptionally well, and then Mark managed to overcome his illness and took off to leave Tom and Lorraine well behind.  Meanwhile, Lorraine was struggling with heavy legs after about 8 miles, and was finding it hard to breathe and run at the same time – usually a necessity during a race.

With constant effective coaching from Tom,  a couple of energy gels and sheer determination, even though looking more than a little worse for wear, Lorraine managed a PB in a time of 1 hr 56 mins, shaving a massive 17 mins off last year’s time.

 

Mark also triumphed with a PB of 1 hr 52 mins, and Mr Hurley an impressive 1 hr 29 mins – faster than he’s run for many years! (Or so we thought at the time, but apparently he did 1 hr 27 last year.)

 

So all in all a great result for the slightly more senior LBAC members.