Reeder storms to his best time

James Reeder produced a super performance to smash his personal best in the TCS London Marathon.

- Kevin Fahey

The 28-year-old Team Bath AC runner soared to the top of the South West Rankings as he finished third in the massed start in a time of 2hrs 18mins 05secs, carving four minutes 14 seconds off the time he set on his debut in the capital last year.

“T’m over the moon with that,’ said a delighted Reeder.

“But I'm feeling a little bit broken now to be honest.”

That's hardly surprising after he raced to the halfway mark in 67:30 and then had to dig deep in the closing stages to keep his form and withstand the soaring temperatures that put paid to many runners’ ambitions.

But Reeder had trained hard for the race, focussing his winter exclusively on the marathon - and he got his reward.

“Running 2:18 was my ambitious target and the plan was to go out at that pace and then push on or not,” added Reeder.

“But I then got into a group running a little quicker and managed to hang on. In the last 10k no-one came by and I managed to catch a few at the same time.”

The stats underline the quality of Reeder’s run. He was not only third man from the massed start but he was the 12th fastest British runner overall and had he been on the elite start his time would have placed him 26th.

“It was a great day out and the crowds were amazing, especially in the second half and were definitely bigger than last year” said Reeder.