MIDLANDS policeman Martin Williams has a double target when, on Sunday, he runs in the Albert Bartlett Edinburgh Marathon, which this year has been accorded the additional accolade of being the official Scottish Championship.
Firstly he wants to w
in the race and to do that he will have to beat Salford Harrier Andi Jones, the first British finisher in the recent Flora London Marathon, and secondly he wants to dip under 2:19.0 for the classic 26 miles-and-a-bit distance and achieve the fairly modest Scottish Commonwealth Games qualifying standard for Delhi 2010, which is nearly ten minutes slower than Capital legend Allister Hutton's all-time Scottish best of 2:09.16 set away back in 1985.
Williams, a 31-year-old Tipton Harrier who lives in Dudley, has only been on patrol for Scotland for the last 18 months, qualifying for a blue vest courtesy of his Scottish mother, but he has also only been running marathons for a very short time and shot straight to the top of the 2008 Scottish rankings after recording 2:19.40 in his debut at the event in Florence last year.
"I'm excited at the prospect of an all-British clash at such a big event as the Edinburgh Marathon, which is going from strength to strength, and I'd love to be the first Scottish runner home and challenge for the overall title," said Williams, who only started running at the age of 25 to keep fit for football and now runs nine miles to and from work each day.
He is also a member of Ron Hill Cambuslang, who along with Chris Wilson and Steve Wylie will be strong favourites for the team title, Williams will have a bit to find if he is to match Jones who set a personal best time of 2:15.20 in London but has only had a month to recover.
Wilson, first Scot last year with a best of 2:27.40 set in London last month, is incidentally a nuclear scientist and still finds time to train despite trips to Switzerland to conduct experiments on the giant Hadron Collider.
The biggest threat to all of them on Sunday however will not be nuclear or from collisions but possibly the weather.
This could be especially hard on the many ordinary club and social runners in the record field of 13,000, with temperatures of 20°C or more forecast and strong sunshine and heat exhaustion is distinctly possible.
The race organisers issued an unprecedented warning yesterday.
"We're asking all runners to please remember the dangers of sunburn and set aside enough time to apply high factor sun block cream," said race director Neil Kilgour.
"That applies especially to those athletes who are likely to take more than three hours and will be finishing when the sun is at its highest."
But the wind will be another factor on this fast, flat out-and-back course which is not dissimilar to that used for previous Commonwealth Games.
There the resemblance ends for the numbers are vastly more than the elite fields for the Games races, as is shown by the amount of water required to keep the competitors hydrated with plans for more than 100,000 bottles to be available along the course.
The start will be in Regent Road at 9.00am and the finish, as last year, will be at Musselburgh Racecourse.
There are at least two previous winners in the men's race, Ireland's Paul McNamara (Abbey AC), who triumphed last year and Ian Grime (Newham & Essex) the 2007 winner, while local support may centre on Tom Ferrington (Corstorphine) and Scott Bradley (Carnegie).
The best Capital hope for a medal is probably in the women's race in the shape of Jennifer MacLean (Edinburgh AC) who hopes to go under 2:50.00, having run 2:54.56 on the much hillier Loch Ness course last year.
Blackburn Harrier Pauline Powell, the 2008 winner, is back but the favourite is Bath's Holly Rush, who has a 2:37.34 to her credit which may be too good for leading Scot Toni McIntosh (Ayr Seaforth), who won the Edinburgh Half Marathon earlier this year.
"This is my first Edinburgh Marathon and I'm hoping the course lives up to its reputation as the fastest in the UK as I'm hoping to get the Commonwealth Games qualifying time for Delhi (2:38.00)," said McIntosh.
