THE eyes of the nation were on the single most famous race in the running calendar as 4,2000 people attempted to achieve their own personal goals in the London Marathon.

Eight members of Harwich Runners made it to the start line this year and every one of them came away with an outstanding achievement.

Rob Reason was tackling the 26.2-mile course for the seventh time since his first attempt in 2012.

Training had gone well for Reason this year and that showed as he managed to record highly-consistent splits all the way through.

His fastest 5km of the race was 18 minutes and nine seconds just after halfway while his slowest was earlier on at 18m 37s, a variation of just 28 seconds.

His finish time of 2h 35m 24s was within a minute of his best time set in 2014 and placed him 207th overall.

The next black and white vest through the finish line on The Mall was Stephen Peck, completing his first London Marathon after outings over this distance at Chelmsford and Halstead in the last two years.

Peck again showed highly-consistent 5km split times throughout the race and managed to lower his own club record for the MV40 category by another four minutes to 2h 40m 7s.

Also targeting a sub three-hour run and a club record was Robin Brookes, who, having recently moved up to the MV50 group and with training going well, had an excellent opportunity to do that.

Brookes started very sensibly, moving through halfway in 1h 23m.

He then managed to hold form to reach the finish in 2h 53m 19s, achieving an eight-minute personal best and that club record.

Simon Day has been training really hard for this year, having suffered in the heat at last year’s London Marathon.

There was no repeat of the hot weather and no issues for a fast-starting Day as he knocked four minutes off his previous best, set at Brighton in 2017, to record an outstanding time of 2h 53m 21s.

Muriel Lovering is new to Harwich and has really put the mileage into training for her third marathon, in which she was raising money for the Shooting Stars Children’s Hospice.

The first ten miles went to plan but was then hit with an extremely bad stitch and her times slowed.

She still managed to continue and finish in a time of 5h 16m 38s.

Next to finish was Dean Splarn, running his first marathon for the club.

He completed the distance in a very respectable 5h 20m 3s.

Lian Meachen has raised a huge amount of money for the British Heart Foundation ahead of her first-ever marathon.

Meachen managed consistent split times to reach the finish line in 5h 44m 36s.

Another who has raised a significant sum for a charity, The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, was Zoe Orr.

Orr was also running her first marathon and, like all the other Harwich Runners taking part, has worked really hard in training to prepare for this day.

She finished in 5h 47m 39s.

Meanwhile, proving there were other races available, Paul Brown travelled to Dusseldorf where he completed their half-marathon in 1h 58m 59s.

At Saturday’s Harwich Parkrun, strong winds made it impossible to record a fast time.

Despite this, club members still occupied the top finish positions.

Simon Harrison finished first for the sixth time in 19m 33s and Madeline Lewis was first female for the 16th time in 23m.

The next finishers in both categories were junior members.

Rem’a Eagle was third male finisher in 20m 10s and Daisy Ward was once again second in 24m 15s.

Last Wednesday, Claire Bransby was the only club member to travel to Great Yarmouth for the first race in the five-mile race series where she finished in 41m 36s.