Paula Radcliffe, a lifelong Bedford & County AC member, has been Britain's most successful female distance runner ever since she won the World Junior Cross Country Championships in 1992. Her glittering career culminated in world marathon records in Chicago (2002 – 2:17:18) and London (2003 – 2:15:25). The latter mark was unbeaten for 16 years, until Brigid Kosgei ran 2:14:04 in Chicago in 2019.

Spool forward 22 years and Radcliffe was back on the road at 26.2 miles with unfinished business in mind. Not chasing records this time but shooting for the stars! By running her first marathon for 10 years in Tokyo on Sunday 2 March 2025, Radcliffe completed her fifth Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star event. She now aims to join the AbbottWMM Six Star Hall of Fame by running the world's oldest marathon in Boston, USA next month.
     
Radcliffe has run and won qualifying AbbottWMM races in London, Chicago and New York and was third in Berlin in 2011 with 2:23:46 towards the end of her professional athletics career. This was an Olympic Marathon qualifying time but sadly a foot injury ruled her out of a final swansong in London in 2012.

Radcliffe announced her retirement in 2015 and her final competitive marathon – or so we thought – was in London that year when she ran 2:36:55 as a W40 master. Explaining her decision to return to the marathon, Radcliffe said: “There are a number of reasons for it all coming together. 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. 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."

Radcliffe finished Tokyo in 2:57:22, running at an average pace of 4:12 per kilometre, but that does not tell the whole story. She started with a 5K split of 19:31 but her slowest 5K between 35K and 40K was 22:37 – still a very healthy parkrun result for us mere mortals. Her first half time was 1:24:49 so the second half took an extra eight minutes to complete – something to work on for Boston in just over five weeks.

This year's Tokyo winners in hot conditions were Ethiopian elites Tadese Takele (2:03:23 PB) and the defending women's champion Sutume Asefa Kebede (2:16:31). This was the 18th edition of the race and 37,785 completed the course.

Tokyo 2025 results are at runABC race listing here.

Photo of Paula Radcliffe leading 2007 New York Marathon courtesy Ed Costello/Wikimedia