Reflecting on marathons to date

It struck me this week that I've now run 11 marathons.  My first thought was - is that all, over nearly 20 years?  But on reflection, my staple longer-distance event until around 2008 was the half-marathon and I've run a lot of those.  I've also done several Grizzlies (approx) 20 miles, and 2 >26 mile events, i.e. the Dorset Doddle (31) and the Herts Stroller (52).

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to collate all the historic marathon data I could find into one place.  There are some gaps, and I will keep trying to fill these.

Year	Event	Time	Position	Age position	Field
1994	London	03:05:00
1995	London	02:59:35
2001	London	02:56:09	696	425	23,335
2002	London	02:54:00
2002	Jungfrau	03:56:21	160	106
2006	London	02:48:44	483	116
2008	Clarendon	03:16:41	3	1	293
2009	Clarendon	03:07:05	4	2	392
2010	Clarendon	03:21:04	12	1
2012	Jungfrau	04:01:27	198	34	2985
2012	Clarendon	03:13:41	5	2	406

It's not a terribly valuable dataset the ability to compare like with like and draw conclusions is a bit limited.  You just can't compare times or positions between my three routes to date.

London - I've had a good innings here, driving down to within 2 min 48 seconds of elite qualification.  For a while I was fired up about taking this further, but I've since lost desire to pound the streets in a relentless search for speed in a flat, urban setting.

Jungfrau - This year I kept to within 5 minutes of my 2002 time which I guess is respectable but still a bit frustrating.  More on this topic here.

Clarendon - It's hard to draw much from the times because so much depends on the conditions underfoot on this cross-country course, and that's precisely why I enjoy it so much.  I had a dreadful time in 2010 (see this post), but that was only five minutes off my best-ever marathon position in 2008.