Vitality London 10,000

 

On Bank Holiday Monday, Leighton Buzzard Athletic Club once again travelled down to the capital en masse to take part in the Vitality London 10000. With places at the Rio Olympics still to be decided there were a number of high profile elites leading us out as the route took in some of the major tourist sites of Central London.

The route headed out along the Mall and underneath Admiralty Arch, past Trafalgar Square, along the Strand, around the Bank of England, past St Paul’s, back along the Strand, down to Westminster and the Houses of Parliament before a final burst along Birdcage Walk to finish in front of Buckingham Palace.

As with last year, club was offered some complimentary places meaning that we had 13 members out pounding the Queen’s streets and able to soak up the unique atmosphere you only get when running in the capital.

A number of people achieved fantastic PBs in what was yet another successful day for the club and just shows how well we are doing as a whole.

First to finish was Elliot Hind, who fresh from his brush with being a minor celebrity the week before, broke Simon Coombes’ club record with a time of 32:19 and finished in 41st place overall. (Simon ran as well but was donning his Herne Hill colours for the day). More PBs followed with Adam and Sam smashing theirs and both running negative splits while Charlie had difficulty getting through the crowds in the first mile and would have certainly beaten his PB on a quieter course looking at his pace on the other 5 miles!

The first lady home for the club was Laura Brine who continued her marvellous run of PBs this year to get under the magic 40 minute mark for the first time and finish in 39:53 and the 92nd lady overall. Jo Sharples followed with a consistent run just ahead of Colin Postawa who was another to gain a PB.

Further PBs were achieved by Alex Killick and Annis Turner who have both put it down to the Monday night speed sessions they have been attending, (that’s not meant to be a plug!) Annis in particular ran a magnificent second half of the race, almost 3 minutes faster than the first half, so maybe there is some truth in it!

Full times and a summary of the LBAC runners can be found below. Hopefully we will be offered more free places next year so another group can tackle the capital in their quest for a 10k PB!

Place	Place in Age Group	Place in Gender	Comment	Name	5k Split	Finish time
41	38	41	Club Record & PB	Elliot Hind	16:10	32:19
246	184	227	PB	Adam Haylock	18:05	36:05
339	238	305	PB	Sam Dear	18:58	37:12
427	284	376		Charlie Mead	19:21	38:15
615	81	92	PB	Laura Brine	19:50	39:53
1016	132	166		Johanna Sharples	21:15	42:26
1238	697	1026	PB	Colin Postawa	21:30	43:33
1928	998	1589		Andrew Hallworth	23:09	46:24
2604	356	499		Lisa Bowyer	24:49	48:48
5718	1148	1705	PB	Annis Turner	29:38	56:28
7479	351	2706	PB	Alexandra Killick	30:41	1:00:31
10455	72	4709		Susan Johnson	34:29	1:10:40
10955	393	5074		Theresa Keefe	36:54	1:14:01