Melfort’s Robyn Luthi is now over halfway to her goal of completing the nine Abbott World Marathon Majors.
Luthi completed the London Marathon on Sunday, April 23 in another new personal best time of three hours and three minutes. She placed 35th in her age group, 246th among women and 3,336th overall.
“It’s been really good,” Luthi said. “I mean, I am 42 and I’m still able to hit these times and continue to improve my time, which is really impressive for me that I am still capable of doing that. I am trying to chase that sub three down and that’s my goal for Chicago. We will see what happens or not but I am really happy with my run yesterday (Sunday). I felt really great for the majority of it.”
Luthi’s next race is the 2023 Abbott World Marathon Majors Wanda Age Class World Championships on Oct. 2 in Chicago.
She said the London Marathon was a great entire experience, primarily due to the large number of supporters.
“The crowds there were insane,” she said. “They were actually the best crowds I have ever seen on all of the marathon courses I have ran. The weather was perfect yesterday, it was plus 10 and a light drizzle so as far as marathon running goes you couldn’t have asked for better weather.”
Luthi said London’s layout made for a congested course. It took some time for the runners to find a steady pace during the first 10 miles.
“You had to run through so many people,” she explained. “There was 48,000 people on the course so it took some time to sort itself out. The streets are narrow there so you are not running on really wide streets on the route.”
Although the course was congested, it was also scenic. Luthi said it offered a spectacular view of London’s scenery, which also made the marathon special.
“It was quite beautiful,” she said. “There is a lot of historical places on the route. You run over Tower Bridge. You run past the Tower of London. You end in front of Buckingham Palace, so there is a lot to see on that course.”
With her next race coming up in October, the turnover is not too short, according to Luthi.
“This is about what I am used to,” she said. “If I am going to do two in a year it will be one in the spring and one in the fall. The next one falls six months from now which is actually really perfect as far as laying out the marathons.
To prepare, Luthi has some light running days prepared over the next four weeks, then plans to get back to her regular training schedule.
In the Berlin Marathon in September 2022, Luthi placed 235th out of 11,509 women. She was 35th in her age class, the 10th fastest Canadian woman, and third fastest Canadian woman in her age class.
Luthi completed a personal best time when she competed in the BMW Berlin Marathon with a time of 3 hours, four minutes and 35 seconds.
Luthi ran the Boston Marathon three times in 2018, 2019 and 2022 and the Chicago Marathon in 2021. With London complete she has also qualified for another marathon.
“Then I did secure my slot for Tokyo 2024 so that will just leave me New York after that. I am over the halfway mark now,” she said.
With the marathon completed, she will now be a tourist before returning to Canada later this week,
“We are in Scotland for four days, so we are going to be touring around Scotland before we go. Running has definitely given us the opportunity to see places in the world that we may not have got to otherwise,” she said.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
