Marathon Day: Tales of Bolton and The Mall

Tarus was due to run the Bolton 10k today. No advertised race limit. No 'phone number on the race fliers. But "race full" when we got there. And an organiser giving some people entries and others not. But denying it. He wasn't budging.

Won by Paul Freary - whose shoe shop Foot Locker was sponsoring. Someone Tarus has beaten the last two times out by around 10 seconds per mile. Waste of time and money, and an opportunity cost as we could have gone elsewhere and won prizes. Letter to Athletics Weekly I think.

In London Andi Jones was second Brit sub 2:18 and Pumlani Bangani, also a Salford Harrier, was around 2:26 or so. Last year the club won the team race with these two plus Tomas Abyu and Eddie Simpson. But Tomas certainly didn't run.

Veteran Liz McColgan just finished after 12 years off with 2:50 clocking.