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The 2017 London Marathon - 23/04/2017

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On a perfect morning for distance running, two CLC Striders – debutant marathon runners both – lined up with 40,000 others on Blackheath to begin their 26.2-mile journey through the iconic streets of the capital as part of the 2017 Virgin London Marathon.

Charlie Haward and David Street had both won the club’s ballot places for the race. Having enjoyed the benefits of club support, wisdom and advice – as well as training plans written for them by Chris Hale, one the club coaches and a former sub three-hour marathon man himself – Charlie and David had put in the training and just needed to trust their preparation on the big day.

For ex-military man David, things went exactly to plan. His training and discipline paid off, with his 5k splits proving metronomic, barely slowing at all over the 42 kilometres and bringing him home in a time of 3:53:53 – meeting his ideal sub four-hour target with minutes in the bank!

Charlie, meanwhile, made a strong start and ran very well until about 30k when she suffered badly with really low blood pressure and had to sit things out for half an hour or so with the St John’s Ambulance staff while she stabilised.  Amazingly, Charlie emerged from their care to continue the race – running all the way from mile 20 to the end and completing her first marathon in just over five hours. Although disappointed with not running the race she had trained so hard for, the club (as, we’re sure, will Charlie herself be in time) is immensely proud of her achievement.