Each year dozens of Great Yarmouth Road Runners members enter the London Marathon and this year 10 were lucky enough to take to the start.

On a day with close to perfect running conditions, the runners were spread across the three main start areas in London’s Greenwich Park.

Club coach Andrew Baker led his team home with an impressive time of 3-19:54 and while this was not a pb, he did himself proud in the middle of his gruelling training programme for his upcoming Iron Man competition in July.

Penny Studley ran her seventh consecutive London Marathon and was delighted with a personal best of 3-31:58. Nicola Baker and Jo Anverali ran most of the route together. They had followed the same training programme and this was Jo’s first London.

Nicola stretched ahead to have a strong finish in a pb time of 3-44:09 ahead of Jo who also set a pb of 3-46:41. All ladies have run a time that would currently see them achieve a Good for Age automatic qualifying time for London 2020 when the marathon will be celebrating its 40th run.

Gary Pillar was awarded a sought-after club entry after his name was drawn in the club ballot. He fully embraced this opportunity and finished in 4-01:49 which is impressive as he only ran Manchester Marathon three weeks earlier. The other club place was deferred by Elaine Stone who had trained so hard but took the sensible decision to withdraw after being plagued with a persistent injury.

Claire Baker and Emma Dawson were both delighted with their marathon experiences. Claire earned an excellent pb of 4-13:54 drawing much inspiration from her family who were supporting on the course. Emma fulfilled her dream of not only completing her first ever marathon but to do it in London in a time of 4-46:06.

Kelly Shaw, Adrian Penn and Nicos Symeou raised lots of money for their various charities. Nicos is a true veteran of the London Marathon and this year enjoyed dressing as Denis the Menace. He was seen on TV passing over Tower Bridge with a cheeky grin.

The GYRR team were grateful to the team mates who travelled on the day to spend the day cheering enthusiastically at the 13 and 22-mile points.

Full results for GYRR: Andrew Baker 3-19:54, Penny Studley 3-31:58, Nicola Baker 3-44:09, Jo Anverali 3-46:41, Gary Pillar 4-01.49, Kelly Shaw 4-12:41, Claire Baker 4-13:54, Adrian Penn 4-21:17, Emma Dawson 4-46:06, Nicos Symeou 5-46:39.