Marathon Legends Series - #3 - Paula Radcliffe

I thought it would be good to continue the started series. So far I covered:

• #1 - Joan Benoit Samuelson
• #2 - Haile Gebrselassie.

I continue the series with another great marathon lady...

Who is Paula Radcliffe?

Paula Radcliffe is a world known English long-distance runner, who is triple winner of London Marathon (2002, 2003, 2005), triple New York Marathon champion (2004, 2007, 2008), and 2002 Chicago Marathon winner.

^Source

A bit of history always helps

Paula was born into a family where running was quite important. Her father was a keen marathon runner as a young man. He took up the hobby again in an attempt to lose weight after giving up smoking. Even though Paula had asthma, she started to run at the early age of seven. She was also suffering from anemia. An important role in her running career had her trainer Alex Stanton, who started to train her when she was twelve and he stayed in the same role also in her professional running years.

^{Womens National Cross Country Race, Rickmansworth, England, 1990; Source}

Paula was six-time world champion and seven-time winner of big marathons

Paula Radcliffe won the following world championship races:

• Marathon 2005 in Helsinki
• World Cross 2001 & 2002.
• World Half 2000, 2001 & 2003.

We, recreational runners, have the privilege to go on same running events as big running stars. And Paula is a big running star of the big marathons! She won the big marathons 7 (!) times:

• London 3 times
• New York 3 times and
• once Chicago.

Very likely Paula Radcliffe is the biggest female road runner

And there are many others great achievements to review. She really excelled in road races:

^Source

And here is the table of her championship records, where she was regularly getting medals in the period 1992 till 2008:

^Source

How impressive and also versatile her running was we can see from last statistical table (personal bests of Paula Radcliffe):

^Source

Paula still rocks!

• As of November 2009, she holds the official world record for 10 km (6 mi) on roads.
• She has twice won the World Half-Marathon championships, twice the World Cross-Country championships (in 2001 and 2002), and in December 2003 became European Cross-Country champion for the second time, the only woman to have achieved this in the event's ten-year history.
• In 2006 she won the Berlin Marathon with time 2:06:08.

Not exactly running achievements, but it is necessary to mention that she also raised (together with Jonathan Edwards) 64,000 British pounds for charity, half of that sum was given to the British Olympic Association and a quarter of the sum going to Asthma UK.

Last marathon?

Paula ran her last professional marathon in
On Sunday, April 26, 2015, Paula Radcliffe ran the London Marathon in two hours, 36 minutes and 55 seconds. This was her final competitive race.

^{Paula Radcliff's last competitive marathon in 2015, London; Source}

After the race, she said: "Down the last mile I thought 'I don't care about the time', I just wanted to thank as many people as I could ... There was a big sign at Embankment saying 'We will miss you' but it won't be as much as I will miss you."

You can find out more about Paula on her web page. She also has an active Twitter account.

Another way to get to know her even better is to read 3 books she authored.

Paula Radcliffe was our third Marathon Legend presented in Marathon Legends Series.

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Stay tuned... next Marathon Legend will be presented soon!

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