James Graham extended his lead in the individual club road race grand prix with a WMA performance of 84.6 at the Rotterdam Marathon on Sunday 10th April 2016. James said:
"On Sunday I took part in the 36th Rotterdam marathon. Rotterdam is an interesting city architecturally as it was virtually destroyed by German bombing during the Second World War and the hastily constructed rebuilding that took place immediately after the end of the war, has now been replaced by many unusual and visually striking buildings.
"The race itself was a great day with fine sunny weather, excellent race organisation and a fantastic crowd all along the route together with much music. There were 17,500 runners in the marathon and some 40,000 participants in total with all the various races held over the weekend. Due to the routing of the course we fortunately had the opportunity to see the race leaders on the opposite side of the road in, what was for them, the final 5km of the race. You could only look in envy at how easily and apparently effortlessly they covered the ground. The race winner was Marius Kipserem of Kenya in a time of 2:06:11 and the first woman home was Leterbrhan Haylay Gebreslasea of Ethiopia in 2:26:15. For my part the pace was rather more sedate but I managed to achieve a PB of 3:00:58 and was third M60. Needless to say, I had a few Grolsch that evening to celebrate!"
The performance takes James closer to the formidable M60 club best of 2:56:58 set by the aptly-named Tom Speed at the 1999 London Marathon. The full results from Rotterdam are here.