London marathon race report - 23 April 2023
London TCS Marathon 2023, Sunday 23 April 2023
On the day the London marathon returned, at last, to its springtime staging, the world witnessed some truly epic performances in the elite races. Sifan Hassan beat the strongest women’s field ever assembled to win her debut marathon, despite struggling with hip pain at the midway stage and falling more than 30 seconds behind. And Kelvin Kiptum ran an astonishing sub-one-hour second half of the race, to blow the men’s field away and set a new course record, running the second fastest marathon of all time. CLC Striders athletes had the honour of being a part of it all.
Performance of the day was earned by Juan Moreno, back from Spain and wearing his CLC Strider vest to run the fastest ever marathon recorded by a club member, coming first in his MV45 age category in a blistering PB time of 2:29:28.
Meanwhile, having both earned championship starts, Liza Bradshaw and Helen Knight ran much of the race together. Bradshaw eventually nudged ahead in her second marathon in as many weekends to finish in a time of 3:06:35, only a few minutes outside her Manchester Marathon time of just seven days earlier. Knight came home in a superb PB time of 3:07:58 and finished inside the top 100 in her age category as the 60th LV40 over the line.
Fiona Brady-Miller ran a solid 3:43:54 – finishing in almost exactly the same time as she achieved in last year’s London Marathon, once again loving the whole experience. After deferring her place from last year due to a horrid hip fracture, Deborah Rees made her return to marathon running with a gutsy 3:45:10 – an incredible achievement after months of rehab and re-building.
And finally, after a promising first half, Javid Norat ran into all sorts of issues with his feet – which were soaked before he even started. Norat discovered just how brutal and unforgiving the marathon can be when things don’t go smoothly. But he didn’t give in and battled home in 4:16:18.
Full results of the marathon are available on the TCS London marathon website