MICHAEL Green and Sue Corsini were the leading East Lancashire finishers in this year’s London Marathon.

The American-based Green enjoyed a strong run to get the better of fellow Blackburn Harrier Ben Fish who fell away in the second half of the race.

There was only 38 seconds between the pair of England Internationals at halfway as Green hit his mark in 1:08:36 and Fish going through in 1:09:14, but nearly 10 minutes at the finish as they clocked 2:23:48 and 2:33:06.

No fewer than 11 local men broke the three hour barrier with another two missing the target by seconds.

Darwen-based Royal Marine Brian Cole was the third across the line in 2:40:19 while Blackburn Harrier Paul Guinan was the first of our veterans in 2:40:47 just as he was last year.

Pushing him hard was last year’s first local Andy Buttery of Rossendale Harriers, who has since turned 40 and there were two over 45s and two over 50s winning membership of the exclusive sub-three club on Sunday.

Dale’s Alan Lundberg-Bury led home Clayton’s Paul Archer in the M45 class with Russ Corsini just getting the better of West Pennine Runner Neil Holding in the over 50s.

The Corsinis were again our best husband and wife team and were in exceptional form after running the Barcelona Marathon in preparation.

Having set a personal best in Spain, Sue was the first of three East Lancashire women to crack 3:30 and the over 45 veteran’s 3:25:15 was little more than a minute ahead of another Darwen Dasher, Joanne Haslam who stopped the clock at 3:26:58.

Clayton’s Sue Burns was made her marathon debut look easy with 3:29:23 for 18th in the over 50s.

As usual Accrington Road Runners ran a capital weekend trip to the event and this time the Jackson family all took part – husband and wife Paul and Karen and their daughter Amy.

Blackburn runner Fred Eastham is thought to be the oldest man in the race this year at 79 and he negotiated his way around the 26.2 miles in 5:43:40.

Chorley AC’s world medallist race walker John Payn is some three years younger than Fred and was a quarter of an hour quicker while Kitty Garnett of Clayton-le-Moors Harriers was a little off her best and wasn’t able to repeat her terrific over 70 women’s class victory from 2009 but claimed 12th.

Norma Smith of Blackburn Road Runners knocked 15 minutes off her 2009 time to dip under four hours again at the age of 63 and take 11th in her class, and Graham Pomfret was another over 60 to shine.

The Blackburn Harrier finished in 3:18:43 for 23rd in his age bracket.

l It is fairly safe to say that nobody in the London Marathon has ever won their class by an hour, but that is what Chorley AC’s John Swift managed at the recent Brighton Marathon.

His winning time of 3:43:45 is one that many younger athletes would be proud of, but Swift is an over 70 veteran and on the day he finished ahead of the first over 65 too.