Did our FLM-focused forum four achieve their marathon targets on Sunday? Find out as they share their highs and lows of race day
Over a period of 16 weeks, longstanding club coach and veteran marathon runner Steve Smythe coached four RW members live on the forums, as they prepared for the Flora London Marathon.
Representative of a mix of running backgrounds and lifestyle commitments, our team used our Garmin-ready schedules as they aimed for a wide range of target-times, from sub-3:00 to Getting Round.
Click on the links below to read their race-day accounts, catch up with their fortnightly training updates, hop on their forum threads or analyse their statistics via Garmin's MotionBased software.
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Ian Ward (aka Wardi)
Finish time: 3:03:43 (Target: sub-3:00)
Wardi thinks: Overall, I was really pleased with the end result - a new PB by three minutes! I'm definitely going to continue taking a crack at sub-3:00 though.
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Rich Kenington (aka RichK)
Finish time: 4:04:54 (Target: sub-3:30)
RichK thinks: Of course I'm disappointed not to have achieved my goal but I couldn't have tried any harder. It just wasn't my day.
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Sarah Pluves (aka Sezz)
Finish time: 4:30:05 (Target: sub-4:30)
Sezz thinks: I felt a real mix of emotions when I crossed the line, and was elated to have knocked 32 minutes off my PB!
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Denise Postings (aka Granny Denny)
Finish time: 6:34:23 (Target: Get You Round)
Granny Denny thinks: The whole day was fantastic, an absolutely incredible experience! And I have to confess, I have just put my name in the ballot for next year...
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About Steve
Steve worked at Runner's World for 10 years and took over the marathon schedules when Bruce Tulloh retired from doing them. He has
run around 60 marathons (26 Londons) has a PB of 2:29 (26 years ago!) but five of the last six marathons have been in 2:42 to 2:46 range. He's also won a British marathon title in his age group.
As far as his coaching record goes; he's helped one runner to British international level at the marathon and another to a British age group record and coached/advised around thirty runners in his running club, who range from 2:30 to outside 5 hours.
