It must have been a close run thing, but the inaugural Big Half staged by the organisers of the London Marathon survived last week’s blast from the Beast from the East, happily for a large Cambridge Harriers road running contingent.
Following a week of sub-zero snow storms and raft of race cancellations around the country, the half marathon through the streets of Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lewisham and Greenwich was only given the go ahead 2pm on Saturday. None of the runners could have been expected the sunshine and pretty favourable road running conditions the race started in. The water and grit on the ground that left most runners looking like they had just run over Parliament Hill at the finish was the only evidence left of the week’s snow. The race started near Tower Bridge and finished at Cutty Sark, running in the opposite direction over roads familar to anybody who has run the London Marathon. It attracted world class athletes tuning up for spring marathons or aiming for selection for the World Half Marathon Champs in Valencia later this month. They were followed home to Greenwich by a deep field competing in the British Half Marathon meaning most people had some company to run in along the way.
Leading the Cambridge runners was Ben Shearer finishing 70.57 in 42nd place. Dom Fiore celebrated a new PB of 84.34 for 461st. Christian’s 83.34 saw him finish 413th and 7th V50-54. Maria MacDonald finished in 2.09.01, 6695th and 8th in her age category.
The race website seems to be technical issue in assigning club names to each athletes currently, making it a little hard to search for Cambridge Harriers runners. So sorry to anybody I’ve missed, let me know you ran and I update the table.
All Cambridge performances I am aware of can be seen below:
RESULTS
Pos
Time
Name
42.
1.10.57
Ben Shearer
62.
1.11.57
Phil Dickens
96.
1.13.53
Danny Kendall
140.
1.15.47
Bayley Massey
255.
1.19.30
Steve Groom
194.
1.17.41
Neb Jovanovic
195.
1.17.42
Andy Inglis
413.
1.23.34
Christian Poulton
275.
1.20.00
Rob Shearer
442
1.24.03
Mitch Dann
461.
1.24.34
Dom Fiore
758.
1.28.40
Gregg Lemos-Stein
3614.
1.51.58
Darren O’Brien
3902.
1.53.40
Kate Mitchell
4409.
1.56.08
Carol Marsh
4683.
1.57.27
Susan Edwards
6695.
2.09.01
Maria MacDonald
8960.
2.26.39
Anna Rowland
9026.
2.27.12
Stephanie Dungate
