Paula Radcliffe has run her first marathon in a decade, completing the 26.2-mile distance in less than three hours at the age of 51.
Radcliffe, whose 2003 time of two hours, 15 minutes and 25 seconds lasted as the world’s best for 16 years and remains the British record, finished Sunday’s Tokyo Marathon in a time 2hr 57min 26sec to finish just outside the top 100 women.
Radcliffe will also run in next month’s Boston Marathon after revealing an ambition to compete in all six of the sport’s “majors”. One of the greatest marathon runners of all time, Radcliffe won seven marathon majors during her professional career, including a hat-trick on the streets of London alongside victories in New York and Chicago.
She was also a multiple world champion across the marathon, half-marathon and in cross-country, although she ended her career without an Olympic title.
Radcliffe was at her peak in the era before carbon reinforced “super shoes” first emerged in 2016, meaning that no woman has bettered her marathon time while wearing the previous style of shoes. As well as the carbon plates, super shoes have special foam which retains more energy from the athlete.
“I turned 50 last year, am now 51, and thinking about the goals I’ve got left. One of those was always to tick off the six marathon majors,” said Radcliffe, who had last raced at the distance in the 2015 London Marathon.
“For most of my career it was five and then Tokyo was added so I never really had the opportunity to race Tokyo. And Boston I never did because it was so close to London.”
In addition to London, Boston and Tokyo, the other major marathons are Berlin, Chicago and New York.
Ethiopia’s Sutume Asefa Kebede won Sunday’s Tokyo Marathon for the second successive year, finishing in 2hr 16min 31sec
The men’s race was won by Ethiopia’s Tadese Takele in a time of 2hr 3min 23sec to clinch what was his first major marathon title. Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, who is the Olympic 10,000m champion, finished ninth in 2hr 5min 59sec.
