NINE Harwich Runners were among the masses at Sunday’s London Marathon.

Rob Reason continued his recent success at this race by finishing in an amazing 146th position, in a time of two hours, 35 minutes and 25 seconds.

There were a few personal bests achieved on the day.

Francis Mills completed the distance in 3h 52m 34s – a 20-minute improvement on his previous best at Brighton.

Laura Parker was running her second marathon in three weeks and bettered her recent Brighton time by six minutes, to post 4h 29m 38s.

Barry Hammick paced himself well to finish in 4h 32m 4s – a second faster than he managed in London in 2010.

Ann Piercy had a terrific run, placing 52nd in her age group (FV60) in a time of 4h 24m 59s.

There were two first-time marathon runners, too.

Madeline Lewis finished in 4h 45m 54s, with Lyndsey Cushing not far behind in 4h 48m 29s.

Experienced distance runner Paul Kerrison ran a good time of 4h 18m 32, while Steve Tatum completed the course in 4h 7m 14s.

Elsewhere, several Harwich Runners were focussing on the shorter 5km (3.1 miles) distance at Parkruns.

Five hardy members made their way to Colchester to join 280 other participants on Saturday morning.

The first of those to finish was Robin Brookes, in 18m 54s.

He was an excellent sixth overall and first in his age category (45-49 years), by over a minute, on his Parkrun debut.

This underlined the progress he has made since joining a short time ago.

Club stalwart Dennis Warner (23m 13s, 54th overall) was next home, in his 30th Parkrun appearance, followed by Kieran Callaghan (24m 11s), in 71st.

Angela Walton has had her fair share of injury woe recently but managed to complete the course in 33m 21s for 79th woman out of 115.

Completing the team was Diane Warner, 107th woman across the line in 37m 49s.

At Chantry Park in Ipswich, Ben Hammond recorded a personal best time of 21m 16s.

In his fifth appearance at the event, he was 39th finisher in a field of 258 runners.

Richard Flutter, who had to forego his place at the London Marathon due to an Achilles injury, managed to limp around the Great Cornard course in 19m 47s for an impressive third place out of 131 runners.