Lisa Palmer broke the Heanor RC senior female club record whilst Dale Annable went sub-31 for the first time as they led home a cavalcade of personal bests from those in yellow and blue at the Leeds Abbey Dash.

Heanor RC juniors Danielle Smith and Lily Winfield also enjoyed outstanding runs to finish first and second girls in the Junior Dash.

Carrying on the form they showed indoors at the Northern Athletics Indoor Open in Sheffield the day before (where Danielle raced to third over 600m in 1:46.81 and twelve year old Lily finished second in the 1000m in 3:24.05), the pair obliterated the old junior girls course record for the 2k distance.

Danielle narrowly came out on top, with a chip time of 6:47 to Lily’s 6:48, as the girls finished a brilliant 5th and 6th overall out of 232 runners.

Full results

In the main event, an incredible eighty two men went inside thirty two minutes (the first fourteen sub-30) and the first four women were all inside thirty four minutes as the 10k race, incorporating England Athletics 10k Championships, lived up to its reputation as one for fast times.

Heanor RC’s coachload of runners took full advantage of the straight out-and-back course and perfect conditions to come home with PBs and many outstanding performances.

Despite initial concerns his time hadn’t been correctly recorded, the updated results showed Dale took twelve seconds off his previous best set at the same race twelve months ago to finish 37th in 30:56.

Stuart King bettered his previous best set just seven weeks ago at the BUPA Great Yorkshire Run to go comfortably inside 32 minutes for the first time, finishing 75th in 31:46.

Matt Bickerstaff and Joe Rainsford enjoyed a close race for eight kilometres of the way before Matt’s strength told and he eased away to a huge ninety-one second PB of 32:49. Despite not even running this time last month due to injury, Joe (32:57) finished the race off well to also dip inside 33, less than twenty seconds off his best.

Ben O’Connell (34:07) added to the PB-gatherers by knocking over a minute off his best set at the Derby 10k in April and Robin Clegg did likewise with a 37:25 clocking.

Lisa carried on the sort of form that saw her destroy the women’s field and finish a lofty 17th overall just seven days ago in the BDL at Chad Park. Lisa took ten seconds off her three year old PB (and club record) to finish 25th female overall in 36:11.

Midland Masters champion Louise Insley (38:14) finished just shy of her best as she finished fifth V40 overall.

Wendy Mullineux (40:04) came away with a huge PB, taking eighty seconds off her previous best set just last month at the Sandbach 10k whilst Jill Burke (41:00) ran her fastest 10k of the year to finish third V50.

Carl Hughes (39:52) notched up another sub-40 as Paul Mercer (41:30) followed up his half marathon PB-setting runs on consecutive weekends last month in Valencia and Worksop with a PB over the shorter distance in Leeds.

Likewise, Paul Winfield (42:56) followed up a HM best at Worksop with a PB on Sunday whilst Rose Leivers further staked her claim as the most improved female this year with another PB. Rose knocked forty seconds off her previous best (and almost four minutes from her best time in 2012) to clock 44:30.

Sarah Fullaway, in only her second ever 10k race (her first was at the Shelton Striders 10k last month), and Lizzie Poole finished side-by-side, crossing the line with chip times of 46:58 and 46:59 respectively.

Jo Potter (48:10) was another to run a huge new PB as Abbie Leivers (53:50) and Sarah Lewis (56:23) both ran well despite being far from fully-fit.

Full results