London Landmarks Half Marathon

Emma and Tracey

 On Sunday 1^st August 3 members of Grantham Running Club headed to London to run in the 4^th edition of the London Landmarks Half Marathon.  Originally scheduled for March before being moved to May then eventually to 1^st August.  There had been concerns over what conditions a mid-summer half marathon would be run in especially after the last few weeks however on the day the conditions were dry and cool to start with getting a little more humid later.  The race was run with COVID secure protocol in place with lateral flow test required 1 day before the event and then the start was split into 7 waves to start the race and separate the runners.  The twisty slightly undulating route as the name suggests takes your round some of the sights of London, starting in Trafalgar Square a short trip south of the river to see the London Eye before moving onto The Royal Courts of Justice, St Pauls Cathedral, Bank of England, The Gherkin, London Monument out to see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge before returning via Embankment to the Houses of Parliament finishing on Whitehall just before Downing Street.

Stuart with his MacMillan top

First home for GRC was Stuart Baty who continued his 2021 form with a new PB of 1:50:57 beating his previous mark by over 3 minutes.

Next home was Tracey Lattimore in a time of 2:16:14 soon followed by Emma Weighill with a time of 2:24:07.

Tracey has been waiting a while to take up her place after originally getting a ballot place for the 2020 version, and she was happy having run with no expectations with her time not being far off her PB and was her first race for some time.

Emma acknowledged the excellent organisation of the race with the very apt theme front line workers and the fantastic atmosphere all the way round the course, she was just pleased to get round having struggled to refuel in the sunnier later conditions.

The race was won by in a time of 1:11:54 by Nick Harris-Fry from London with the first lady home being Abbie Pearse from Sheffield in a time of 1:23:22.