Conor Sarsfield of Helsby Running Club opened up a ten-minute winning margin over the closing miles of the Edinburgh Marathon on Sunday, taking the men's title in 2:18:04 on a course that began at Potterrow and ended in Musselburgh's Pinkie Playing Fields. Shaun Cumming of East Sutherland AC was third in 2:30:19, with a second-placed runner splitting the podium gap that was wider than any seen in the event's recent editions.
Sarsfield ran a controlled first half, locked into a 5:13-per-mile rhythm through the Holyrood Park climb and the long coast-road section that runs out past Portobello toward Prestonpans. He picked the race up after the 20-mile turnaround at Aberlady, riding a clean tailwind back toward Musselburgh and gradually unwinding the field. His winning time is the fastest by a non-elite-invitee men's winner at Edinburgh since 2022 and places him inside the British top-twenty for the spring marathon window.
The women's race produced a different kind of breakthrough. Melissah Gibson, running for Ealing Eagles Run Club, won in 2:43:55 — an eight-minute clear of Ashleigh Harvie in second (2:51:52) and Susan Stead in third (2:53:55). Gibson's first standalone marathon victory comes off a London Marathon spring block, and her even-pacing across the second half (6:14, 6:11, 6:09 closing miles by her watch-file splits) was the difference once the course tipped down out of Longniddry.
The half marathon, run as a Sunday companion event from the Royal Mile out toward Musselburgh, went to David Meehan in 1:08:02 in the men's race and Rebecca Ezra-Ham in 1:18:19 in the women's. Both winners crossed onto the marathon course at the eight-mile mark, with race officials keeping the elite groups separated through a chip-timed wave start at 10:00 from Potterrow. The marathon and half together drew tens of thousands of starters across the weekend, with the 5K and 10K races for the festival's Saturday programme producing community-club wins for local Edinburgh AC athletes.
Edinburgh's club-runner-first character has long been one of its defining features, and the 2026 edition leaned harder into that than usual: there were no elite invitees brought in from East Africa, and the day's three winners across the marathon and half were all UK-based club athletes. With the festival's 24-hour follow-on events still to come the next weekend, organisers will close the books on the headline race having delivered a quietly strong domestic showcase on a day that produced good weather and clean course conditions throughout.