Great Night of 3000m racing

Jonny Cornish in action in the final race of the night. Photograph by Nigel Bramley

With 78 personal bests, 46 seasonal bests, and two UK age records, the second running of the HW 3000m Night was a true feast of athletics, with 124 runners taking part in nine races. HW's incredible Peter Giles (below right) celebrated his 75th birthday nine days before the evening and set a new M75 record of 12:1.82. His time bettered the 12:28.07 set by Victor Shirley of the Northern Masters Club to take the men’s M75 silver medal in the World Masters Indoor Championships in Torin, Poland, in March. And Clare Elms, W55, of Dulwich Runners set a new W55 record with 10:11.24, improving on the 10:13.8 posted by Scot Sandra Branney of the Victoria Park/City of Glasgow club in Edinburgh at the end of May, 2009.

Fastest time of the night was posted by Owen Hind of Kent AC who won the last of the nine races in 8:21.00. Quickest of the 26 HW runners in action was Jonny Cornish who finished fourth behind Hinds in a pb of 8:25.33. Second fastest was Ross Franks in race 7, who clocked 8:32:43, a 23 second improvement in his previous best time for the distance set in a Southern League match in July 2017. The previous week Franks had also set a pb in the 1500m clocking 3:54.86 in the BMC event at Eltham. (Eltham also proved a good venue for HW's Tom Jervis, who posted his best time of the summer, finishing fourth out of 11 runners in the fastest 5000m race, in 15:18.85).

BRONZE FOR CHAD

Teenager Chad Miller, last year's England U20 100m champion, had to settle for bronze this year, posting a time of 10.90 into a stiff 2.2 metres per second headwind at Bedford International Stadium on June 22.  He will be hoping for better conditions and a faster time next weekend at the Bauhaus Junior Gala in his bid to make the team for the European Junior Championships in Boras, Sweden (July 18-21).

Chad's older brother Rechmial finished fifth in the U23 100m Championship at Bedford in 10.78, again racing into a headwind. He was slightly below his best time of the season of 10.41 achieved at the same track at the start of June when he took silver in the South of England Senior Championships. Rechmial reached the U23 finals after winning his heat in 10.68 and finishing second in his semi-final in 10.77, both faster than the timehe posted in the final. He is fourth in the U23 rankings for his event this season.

FREDDIE IS NUMBER ONE

An outstanding time of 22.7 by Freddie Arkell in the Youth Development League match at Battersea Park on 22 June has seen him top the 2019 U15 Boys rankings. He also ran a pb of 11.32 in the 100m at the same meeting, which puts him 8th in the UK rankings.

Results

Wednesday, 26 June: HW 3000m Night: Full results

Sat/Sun 22/23 June: England U20/U23 Championships, Bedford Full results

Saturday, 22 June: Youth Development League, Battersea Full results

Wednesday June 19: BMC, Eltham Full results

parkrun 22 June

Jonny Earl kicked off his wedding day at the Trelissick parkrun where HW athletes, together with Jonny's twin brother Nick (the winner in a course record) took the top five places (see above). Meanwhile back on Wimbledon Common, Sam Barker and David Lewin were second and third in 17:05 and 17:12 respectively. Gina Galbraith was first woman home in 19.20, for once outside her pb!