Joe Rainsford, Stuart King and Chris Rainsford made their debuts over 10,000m on the track in the Highgate Harriers Night of the PBs incorp British & England Athletics Championships on Saturday night.

Heavy showers and a persistent home-straight wind on the track at Parliament Hill, London proved testing but the conditions weren’t enough to stop Joe smashing his outright 10k personal best by 14 seconds in his first attempt over the distance this year.

Five races across the evening culminated in GB internationals Jo Pavey and Andy Vernon taking the victories in the championship events but Joe kicked-off HRC interest in the second race of the evening at 6:45pm.

Looking strong and controlled throughout, Joe shared the pace with the large chasing group of athletes as three broke away early behind the pacemaker, Aaron Scott.

Going through the halfway mark at just over sixteen minutes, the last six months of training paid dividends – as well as the track work over the last few weeks – as Joe kicked home to a personal best time of 32:24.69.

The going was a little tougher for Chris and Stuart in the following race at 7:30pm and both failed to improve on their personal bests.

Chris aimed to go through 5k in 15:30 and was spot-on in his efforts but a completely isolated race told and he slowed in the second half to cross the line in 31:43.53.

Stuart fared similarly and ended up outside his road best by twenty three seconds. Just four days after running a swift season’s best of 3:53.85 over 1500m at the BMC races in Stretford, Stuart crossed the line in a race over six times the distance in 32:09.24.

Full results

The following day, Dale Annable and Matt Bickerstaff travelled down to the West Country to compete in the high-quality Bristol 10k.

The windy weekend remained and proved prohibitive to super-fast times but both runners still clocked their third-fastest times ever with Dale going inside 32 minutes with 31:56 and Matt (33:15) running just two seconds shy of his time in Lincoln last month.

Full results

At the Awsworth 5k the same morning, there was double-success for two of HRC’s junior athletes. Emily Deeming ran a brilliant time of 21:06 to take the honours overall in the women’s category whilst Dylan George led the way in a swift 19:36 to finish first junior male.

Carl Hughes ran 19:03 to finish fourth at the West Park 5k in Long Eaton as Gary Fletcher ran a new PB of 23:15.

The Charnwood AC Open on Wednesday saw personal bests for Lily Winfield and Emily Deeming in the 1500m and Phoebe Winfield compete in the 100m sprint.

Emily took a huge thirteen seconds off her previous best to run 5:39 (results still to be confirmed) whilst Lily clocked 5:08 – a time that, when confirmed, will see her sitting inside the top-15 in the country for her age. Ashley Deeming also ran over 1500m for the first time in over twenty years and recorded a speedy 4:47.

The previous weekend saw personal bests not only for Louise Insley at the Great East Anglia Run but also for Ed Godber at the undulating Lichfield Half Marathon.

Louise slashed almost fifty seconds off her previous best to take the British Masters V40 title (read more about her race HERE) whilst Ed revised his PB by almost two minutes to run 1:32:13.

Full results

Garry Cooper (41:04), Paul Winfield (45:16) and Rose Leivers (47:48) rounded-off the HRC efforts last weekend at a hilly Chatsworth 10k.

Full results

Photos: Joe Rainsford & Ashley Deeming (Facebook)