Hundal easily achieves Amsterdam ambition

Steve Hundal celebrates going under three hours in Amsterdam.

Leamington C&AC's Steve Hundal achieved his aim of a sub-3hr marathon at the age of 50 at the Amsterdam Marathon.

Hundal joined training partners and clubmates Steve Howes, Craig Bower and Jack Gammon for the 39th running of the marathon which attracted more than 12,000 starters.

However, the quartet found themselves in different starting pens, with Hundal benefiting from his start position just behind the elite runners.

Quickly into his race pace, Hundal passed half-way in 87min 4sec and maintained his pace through the second half of the race, running an almost even split of 87:21 to finish in a superb 2:54:26 for 304th.

Howes, however, struggled to get into his running after starting out from the third pen, with hundreds of runners ahead of him slowing his progress.

He went through half-way in 96:13 before producing a huge negative split of 91:28 for the second half to come home in 3:07:41 (969th).

Gammon also suffered with the heavy congestion in the early phase of the race, crossing the line in 3:40:24, the same time as Bower, whose preparation for his first marathon had been hampered by a bruised heel.

Spa Striders’ Chris Mckeown knocked four minutes off his PB to finish in 2:54:55, with clubmate Ste Taylor running 3:12:04 in his debut marathon. Anne Hurrell (3:39:12) ran a PB, with Chris Jones clocking 4:57:43.

Kenyan Daniel Winjiru was first in a course record 2:05:20.

Striders’ Andrew Grimshaw (1:22:58) and Kenilworth Runners Martin Dorrill (1:27:25), Debbie Streets (1:50:56), Lorne (1:47:47) and Liz Williams (1:55:27) competed in the half marathon which also suffered from congestion, with 14,832 finishers.