Hercules Wimbledon AC round-up: Plenty of PBs at 2024 London Marathon

Dozens of Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club athletes recorded personal bests at the London Marathon, writes George Mallett.

The weekend started with the mini- marathon and junior athletes competing over a 2.6km course which, finished, like the full distance event, on The Mall.

The competition doubles as the British Athletics Road Championships.

U13 boy Theo Creed continued his stellar 2024 season to take third in 8:24, separated from second by just a photo finish. It adds to a UK Inter-County title in March.
James Fraser, 21 seconds behind was an impressive 16th. Freia Harper-Tee, competing in the same age group, came 40th in the girls race.

Attention then turned to Sunday’s 26.2-miles main event. Fred Slemeck was first home in a PB of 2:23:31, good enough for 35th in the championship race and 12th on the club’s all-time list for the distance.

Claire Grima was second of the V45s in a hugely impressive 2:48:33 and 47th overall out of the women runners.

Cross-country captain James Stockings took 10 minutes off his debut time to record 2:27:37, to go 17th on the all-time list and 105th on the day. He was paced for much of the race by Rhys Boorman, a 2:25 man himself, but closed well to record an impressive one minute negative split between the first and second halves.

Boorman was only two places behind in 2:27:42, an impressive showing given recent injury troubles. Richard McDowell made up the scoring four in the team competition, clocking 2:28:56 for 144th, with Adam Moriaty pacing his effort superbly to clock a PB – by more than five minutes – in 2:29:08.

Oli Carrington made a superb debut for 2:32:29 and 258th. Alex Tsagkas ran 2:36:57, Simon Wade recorded a PB of 2:39:08 ahead of Dave Grima (2:39:11).
Joe Clark ran 2:42:54 for 992nd, with George Longworth running 2:45:03. Ross Franks in 2:50:56 continued the deluge of sub-three hours runners.

Hercules athletes head to Dulwich for the Podium 5k on Saturday. Charlie Wyllie (14:28) was sixth in the elite race.

Alex Sutton won the B race which also featured World Championships medallist Laura Muir. A speedy finish saw him dip under the 15-minute barrier on time, but cruelly be rounded up to 15:00 as is the custom with road times that have decimal places.  Eoin Brady recorded a PB (15:19), just one second behind Muir.

PICTURE: SHEILA KEATING