Are you on about the Landmarks Half here? She must have jumped a barrier at some point surely? I’ve not run it, but the map online makes it look possible. It wouldn’t surprise me if she did the same at London, but if she had worn a chip it would have made it really obvious given where they put the timing mats.
Yes, the Landmarks Half. I haven’t run it either; are there definitely barriers? Having run the London 10,000 and several others in the area, leaving the course shouldn’t be hard. There were plenty of stretches with no barriers in the ones I’ve run, even the 10,000 which London Marathon Events put on (not the same company as the one that does the LLMHM, of course).
If it were me and I wanted to replicate what seems to have happened here, I’d leave the course at about 11k and walk down to the Embankment. You could stop along the way, remove the bib and re-pin it in one of those little City of London streets. I used to live nearby and on the weekend, away from any large events like the race route, it’s next to deserted. You wouldn’t even have to hang about long before re-entering the race (and being caught by the 1:31-ish crowd). Back of the envelope maths on this but it works out as possible. Especially if your middle 10k split is implausible and you missed the 15k mat, all the way out at Tower Bridge.
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Ok long time lurker first time poster here, just piping up because I’m perplexed.
WHY would a well respected, well liked, national journalist, six star majors, sub 3 hr marathoner cheat in order to secure (by her standards) a mediocre race time and a medal? I bet she has hundred of medals. If the LLHM was going tits up, why not quit or jog it in?
She has also been vocal about fairness (and Guardian-writer husband continues to be very vocal about fairness). It’s all just very strange.
Genuinely, does anyone have a theory as to why??
She’ll go dark now and we’ll never get an actual explanation. May as well speculate.
The only plausible explanation seems to be concern about a lack of form impacting professional gains.
tit is going bad in a race and instead of bowing out, you’re worried about how it looks and how things have been going and you decide to fake it, because it’s slower than your PB anyway, you’re not going to pretend to win, and “no one will ever know”. But it’s better than posting a 1:45 (the pace she was heading for in the first 10k, where she started pretty mid and was slowing down) when you’re a running industry professional and think you need to maintain some status.
It’s insane to me but I can see the rabbit hole someone could go down. But yes, this makes the least sense to me too.
