Personal Bests tumbled at Sunday’s Trafford 10k as seven of the nine Royal Blues who tackled the flat, fast course were rewarded with new best times for the distance.
In the UK’s highest quality road race of the year so far, Tom Lancashire, just cracked the 29-minute barrier to win in 28:56 with a further 27 runners under 30 minutes, and in all 58 finishers broke 31.
First Harrier home was Nathan Reed, who placed 87th in 31:50 (all given times are Chip Times) to shave six seconds off his previous best. Barely 30 seconds later, with the clock hitting 32:22 Andy Powell was across the line, another PB, this time by over half a minute.
And so the trend continued. Ian Dixon’s 33:19 in 129th took a big chunk off his previous best, as did the 33:31 by 139th placed Matt Devlin, almost a three minute improvement!
Michael Thompson was next Harrier home, but as his 10k mark of 31:10 dates back to 1996 it was too much to expect yet another PB. Michael’s 33:48 in 153rd place was nonetheless 8th fastest for Over-45’s in the UK so far this year.
Michael Edwards ran 34:40 to finish 176th and carve a whopping 92 seconds off his previous best, followed home 19 seconds later by Ian Ritchie, who dipped one second under 35 minutes in 183rd place, while Jimmy Johnson was almost a minute quicker than ever before with 38:47 in 290th. Aidan Crowe completed the Sunderland squad in 378th, still comfortably amongst the top half of the 800+ strong field, in 41:44.
This plethora of new personal bests, and very solid performance from those who didn’t manage to shave anything off their previous times, shows that the consistent training over the winter, and the carefully planned track work at Silksworth set by Richie, is paying off. Trafford marks the first major road race of the season and the team has set the bar high, but we can expect further improvements throughout 2016.