Steve Edwards follows the sun to Lanzarote for this week's marathon

Steve Edwards chased the winter sun for a birthday treat and ran in the Lanzarote Marathon 2009 on Sunday 29th November 2009. His marathon fame went before him and he had a great write up on the Marathon website:-

"Steve Edwards will be running his 492nd marathon in Lanzarote as he gets ever closer to achieving his lifetime goal of running 500 marathons. The 47 year old from Gloucestershire UK is already a double Guinness World Records™ holder for running the fastest 10 marathons in 10 consecutive days and for running the most marathons in a one year period, a total of 87. However he is now well on track to claiming the title 'Fastest 500 marathons completed by an individual'.

So far, 427 of his marathon total have been completed in under 3hrs 30min and with an overall average finish time of just over 3hrs 15min, he's hoping to become the first athlete in the world to run 500 sub 3:30 marathons. This he hopes to achieve in time for the Olympics in 2012, the year of his 50th birthday!"
run500@hotmail.co.uk  |   07803 262190  |  www.justgiving.com/run500

Here is Steve's Race Report:-
"This was a marathon I'd never run before and it was quite a late decision to go over and do it, however as it fell on my birthday weekend we thought it would be a nice treat with the opportunity to grab some winter sun.

Organised by Club La Santa, this is a flat 4 lap course along the sea front of the capital town Arrecife, giving runners the opportunity to chose between running a quarter, half or full marathon.

On race day it was much warmer than I thought it would be with temperatures reaching the mid 70's before we'd even started, so I decided to set off a little steadier than normal. It had certainly been a long time since I'd run a marathon in this heat and a bit of a shock from what we'd been used to back home! However, I ended up running the first quarter in just under 46 minutes and then reaching halfway in just over 1hr 31min which was much faster than I'd planned. The heat was beginning to take its toll and this reflected in lap 3 which was to be my slowest taking well over 47 minutes. I wasn't feeling the best as I made the turn to complete the final lap but when Teresa shouted that I was lying in 18th place and gaining on the runner in front, it helped to spur me on a little. As I passed that runner who was now walking, I realised that one or two others in front might actually be feeling worse than me and this thought gave me the little kick I needed to dig deeper and push on. In the end I passed another 3 runners to finish 2nd V45 and 14th place overall with a time of 3:04:30, certainly not what I expected in the hot conditions, so was very pleased to record yet another sub 3:05.

With one more marathon left this year, my rest period can't come soon enough!"

Happy Birthday Steve.

http://www.clublasanta.com/Default.aspx?ID=10759

http://www.clublasanta.com/Ciudad_de_Arrecife_Marathon_Lanzarote-10263.aspx

Source: Steve Edwards