Latala smashes club record in London run

Athletics

Robert Latala’s third London Marathon was his best.

The Ashford & District Running Club member finished 88th in Sunday’s race – beating his own personal mark set two years ago – and smashing the club record by over six minutes.

Latala’s time of 2hr 32mins 12sec was over a minute quicker than in 2015 when he finished 129th and well inside Carl Jones’s club best time which had stood since 2012.

Kevan James was next home (3:09.44), followed by Dan Green (3:14.28), Scott Green ( 3: 16,48), Richard Baker (3:21.46), and Neil Cloke (3:22.43).

Danyel Carter followed up her pb at Brighton a fortnight earlier to beat it again by more than six minutes, coming home in 3:38.45 ahead of Paul Brasington, another who ran in both races, clocking 3:42.23.

Dave Hunt finished in 3:49.35, while Neil Buckley c o mpleted hi s s e c o nd marathon in as many weeks in 4:19.33.

Elsewhere. Steve Hickman completed the tough Fox Ultra Marathon, a 60k route around Godalming and Guildford, finishing in 8:00.09.

Jon Wells finished third in the Rother Riverside 10k in a time of 41.00.

Seven youngsters competed for the first time as a combined Ashford/ Thanet team produced a fine performance to finish third in the UK Youth Development League South Division 1 East meet at Medway Park, Gillingham, on Saturday.

Under-13 trio Evangeline Norwood, Harry Harman and Jack Saxby were joined by under-15s Libby Moore, Bronwyn Yeandle, Kristian Samwell-Nash and Connor Williams.

They helped make up a squad of 26, managed by Tina Tappenden in a national competition for boys and girls in the two age-groups.

Ashford finished on 388.5 points behind winners Brighton and Hove (564) and Medway and Maidstone (517), an outcome which surprised and delighted club officials.

There were a total of 44 personal bests and season best performances.

Kieran Day, Kristian SamwellNash, Aston Frederick, Spike Purdie, Aeron Lambert, George Seery, James Coward, Chase Arnold, Benjamin Smith, Connor Williams.