Christa Cain of Douglas produced an impressive performance in her maiden marathon to finish second overall and first woman in Spain’s Sierra Nevada Mountains last Saturday.

The 36-year-old completed the 26.2-mile course in 2hr 50min 26sec to finish a little over five minutes behind the winner and almost 23 minutes ahead of the second female from Sweden.

Dubbed the World’s Fastest Marathon, it involves a total of 1,938m descent (an average of 4.6%) over a paved route that sweeps, serpentine-like through the mountains to finish in the historic city of Granada, Andalucía.

With such a steep rate of descent, the race started at an altitude of 2,500 metres in Sierra Nevada (a ski resort from November to March) where the temperature was a cold 9C (48F), but it was about 25C in the city for the finish (80C), so a huge difference.

Very nearly a 100% downhill route (less than 1km is without decline), the altitude drop is 1,938 metres (6,358 feet), so three times the height of Snaefell.

Her partner, Simon Scott, was 12th overall in a total field of 53 finishers with a time of 3:25.36, first over 55.

His only other marathon was London in 1994 in a time more than 20 minutes slower.

The couple live in Douglas and have been training with Christian Varley for a few months.

‘It was mainly downhill and yes much faster initially, but I think in some ways that could be more strain on the body,’ commented Varley.

‘Christa is rapid and is up with my top males in the group sessions. I genuinely believe she is a sub-three hour marathon runner on a regular course.’

Both she and Simon achieved qualifying times for the Boston Marathon in 2024, which will be their next marathon challenge.

Christa is a manager at Barclays and Simon is managing director at IQ EQ Isle of Man.