Troi Baxter sets big new personal best as Newmarket Joggers impress at London Marathon

Newmarket Joggers’ Troi Baxter smashed her personal best during Sunday’s TCS London Marathon.

Baxter stopped the clock in a time of two hours, 52 minutes and 32 seconds, which was more than 16 minutes better than her previous top performance set at the Boston Marathon in the USA.

She even managed to post a highly-prized negative split, finishing the second half 38 seconds faster than the first to end up the 53rd female past the line.

Also setting a personal best in the capital was club-mate Mark Hayward, who finished 202nd of 43,561 overall in a time of 2:36:40, which has given him his targeted Championship entry qualification for next year’s race.

Jimmy Smith (2:43:41) was also in top form with his best marathon time since Tokyo in 2018. Smith has now extended his record of sub three hours in all eight of his London Marathon appearances.

Not far behind came Paul Holley (2:49:35, 9th of 1,700 in M55-59), while Ben Blowes (3:03:26) was only about a minute outside the Guinness World Record for a runner dressed as a boxer, complete with helmet, gloves and boxing boots.

Marc Drury (3:40:08) carried The Racing Centre colours with pride and put in a great effort, despite suffering in the closing stages with cramps and muscle strains.

Richard Jones (4:07:05) went well in his first marathon for six years and Pearl Fay (5:52:57) did an impressive job in her first ever marathon, holding her own and winning the London Classics medal for completing the Prudential Ride 100 (2019), the Serpentine Swim 2 miles (2019) and the London Marathon (2022).

Meanwhile, Chris Aylmer (5:07:18) produced his best time of three marathons this year.

Also in marathon action up in Chester was the club's Neil Pollard, who achieved a personal best time of 2:31:56.

He finished in sixth of 2,404 overall runners and first of 297 in the M40-44 age group.

Chris Underwood (3:58:06, 1,077th of 2,404 overall, M18-34) also ran very well in this race, which was his ninth marathon on record, achieving a personal best by more than 18 minutes and beating his previous attempt at the London Marathon (2019) by 49 minutes.