Night of the 10,000m PBs-20th May 2017

 

Following on from last year’s successful outing to the “Night of the 10,000m PB’s”, City of Portsmouth club members and coaches made a return visit to the event at Parliament Hill, hosted by the Highgate Harriers athletics club.

Endurance coach Lucy Czura was coincidentally celebrating a special birthday, so the mini-bus was decorated accordingly to mark the occasion. A trip to Parliament Hill is never complete without taking a wrong turning and getting lost in the middle of London, so duty driver Paul Bleach duly obliged in keeping with tradition !

The event itself comprised of seven, top quality, paced 10,000m track races featuring athletes, some of whom were aiming to achieve the 10,000m qualifying time for this year’s World Championships in London. The event is known for its special atmosphere, with spectators allowed to watch the race from lane three. Loud music, entertainment and “small amounts” of alcohol also contributed towards the fantastic atmosphere.

In between the racing, people were treated to an hour-long question and answer session with four sporting greats, Lord Seb Coe, Paula Radcliffe MBE, Wendy Sly MBE and the snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan OBE. For those of you who are not aware, Ronnie is also a keen runner, boasting an impressive 10k time of sub 36 minutes ! The opinions, stories and knowledge shared during this session were very interesting. The younger members of our club in attendance (Saffron, Callum, Jacob, Josie and Cameron) squeezed their way to the front of the crowded audience, in order to get as close to the stars as possible and take onboard the advice that was on offer. Lord Coe continually reiterated the importance of winter cross-country training and competition to him during his career, and strongly encouraged current athletes to follow suit. He attributed much of his summer track success to his winter cross country regime. Each member of the panel was asked to explain their most memorable, toughest regular training sessions. Our coaches that were present (Pat, Lucy and Alan) were no doubt making mental notes about how they could inflict similar pain and punishment on their respective training groups in future sessions! Finally, Lord Coe did his best to answer a question posed to him from Alex Teuten, seeking advice on how to successfully transfer excellent cross-country form into the track season.

The final two races of the night featured the big guns in the GB trials. Andy Vernon finished 1st in the men’s race, clocking a time of 28:21. Although this fell short of the required time, he seemed happy enough with his victory, confidently high-fiving spectators whilst completing his final lap of the race. Former COPAC athlete Alex Teuten finished the race with a commendable PB of 29:52, cheered on by his former clubmates on the home straight.

In the Women’s race, Liz Potter won in a time of 32:04, achieving the qualification time in the process. Aldershot athlete Steph Twell, and fans favourite Jo Pavey finished in 2nd and 4th places respectively, the former narrowly missing the required qualifying time by a small margain.

Following the completion of the races, a final rendition of happy birthday was sung to Lucy and lots of homemade birthday cake was dished out. Some people were then fortunate enough to pose for some photographs with Paula Radcliffe(see attached) to finish off the evening on a high note.

Hopefully, having witnessed the event, it will inspire some of our excellent club runners to compete here next year, and we will be back to cheer them on !

Even though we arrived home late at night, tired and weary, a great day and evening was enjoyed by all who attended. Special thanks to Paul Bleach for organising and making the trip possible.

Night of the 10,000m PBs-20th May 2017