The 2026 UK Athletics Marathon Championships saw both Mahamed Mahamed and Eilish McColgan successfully defend their national titles from 2025\u00a0 at the London Marathon.<\/p>\n
Mahamed produced a superb run to finish tenth overall, clocking a lifetime best of 2:06:14. The performance moves him to second on the UK all-time list behind Mo Farah.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything felt smooth, everything was perfect. The conditions were great and the atmosphere was amazing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan was just to stick with the group. We were pushing each other a lot, so it is a positive that the Brits are pushing it along the way. We were chasing the guys in front, and it is happy days today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick Dever claimed silver in 2:06:18, elevating him to third on the UK all-time list. Weynay Ghebresilase ran 2:06:28 to secure bronze, moving to sixth all-time and setting a Scottish record.<\/p>\n
In the women\u2019s race, McColgan finished seventh overall in 2:24:51, just outside her personal best in what was only her second career marathon following her debut last year.<\/p>\n
The four-time European medallist battled through a painful blister that developed mid-race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am obviously a little bit disappointed with my time, everyone wants to run a PB. I set off at a good pace and felt strong through halfway, but I had a bit of trouble with my foot and a really bad blister, so I was running awkwardly from halfway onwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got through it, and I am really pleased that I finished today. There were plenty of points where I was not sure it was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rose Harvey secured silver in 2:26:14, with Louise Small taking bronze in 2:28:29.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, there were several standout British performances across the day. Richard Whitehead improved his own world record for a double above-knee amputee, running 2:40:25.<\/p>\n
In the men\u2019s wheelchair race, David Weir claimed bronze in 1:29:23, marking an extraordinary 27th London Marathon appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been a tough week for me, but I knew I was in good shape, feeling fit and healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
After suffering an equipment issue before the start of her race, Eden Rainbow-Cooper fought back impressively to finish 11th, just a week after winning the Boston Marathon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be honest, there were a lot of tears and there still are. It is really difficult knowing how good I felt at the start. Equipment problems happen, it is part of racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am proud of myself for both Boston and London for different reasons. What got me to the end in both was grit, determination and a willingness to push through the pain, and I am still happy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 UK Athletics Marathon Championships saw both Mahamed Mahamed and Eilish McColgan successfully defend their national titles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-553828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}