With over 31,000 starters, this was the largest number for any marathon race and amongst them were 22 South London Harriers plus a few second claimers.

Left: This is how the Kenyans do it!

Some of our runners were seasoned campaigners such as Reg Brown, who maintained his 100% record of competing in all London Marathons, while Stuart Major and Georgina Johnson were first timers.
The weather is a significant factor for the marathon distance and the day's forecast was uninspiring, but fortunately turned out to be much better than predicted: sunny but cool with little wind. 

The club was eager to see how Stuart Major (shown right at 15 miles), its most successful athlete of recent years, would perform in his marathon debut. Iin the week before the race he was unsure of his fitness to the degree that he considered not running. However, he decided to go for it and up to the 23 mile mark was on for a superb 2:20 time but at this point he started to suffer with cramp and had to slow his pace to finish with a still impressive 2:28.25 in 79th place.

...

Carol Evans (left also at 15 miles) improved on her 1998 performance by 4 minutes and finished well up the women's rankings in 37th place.

In the AAA Team Championships our men took 5th place. The scorers were Stuart Major, Dave Byrne, Dave Marshall and Andy Evans with a time of 10:35:32. Andy Evans has been a club stalwart for many years now and still holds the Club record at the Marathon Distance. Here he looks very composed going through Canary Wharf. 

Going one place better than the men, SLH women scored 4th AAA team with Carol Evans, Michelle Cameron, and Christine James with 9:31:38.

The photo on the left shows Christine James with Pippa Crocker at the 15 mile point.

SLH times in full

dnf: P Williams and G Purnell
*pos'n in age group

At 20 miles Stuart Major was still going like a train!