10k road PBs for Callum and Eilish
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This weekend the star performances came from competitions in Spain and Qatar.
10K Valencia Ibercaja, Valencia, Spain, 13 January
After a minor injury setback forced him to miss the Fukuoka Marathon in December, Callum Hawkins (handicap -6.1) bounced back in style to clock a 10km personal best in Spain. Running against a world class field, so strong that the young Scot only finished 19th, Hawkins crossed the line in 28.55, less than 10 seconds behind the leading European on the day. In the women’s race there was also a nice early season personal best for Jennifer Nesbitt (handicap -0.5), who sliced 14 seconds off her previous 10km road best as she finished 11th in 33:10.
Cross Internacional Juan Muguerza, Elgoibar, Spain, 13 January
Representing England at this high quality cross country meeting in Spain, Amelia Samuels (handicap 3.4) and Holly Page (handicap 2.3) scored a fine 1-2 in the junior women’s race, getting the better of international opposition.
In fact all four runners finished in the top ten, with Shannon Flockhart (handicap 3.0) fourth and Olivia Mason (handicap 2.0) tenth. It was a similar story in the junior men’s race with Zakariya Mahamed (handicap -3.2) and Euan Brennan (handicap -2.5) also taking the top two spots on the podium after a race long tussle.
In the senior races, Kate Holt (handicap -0.2) was the best placed Brit in fifth, with marathoner Lily Partridge (handicap -1.7) making a return to the country just one place back, whilst Rachel Robinson (handicap 0.4) had a breakthrough run in eighth. Mahamed Mahamed (handicap -5.7) led home the senior men’s England team with a 12th place finish, 10 seconds and two places ahead of Jack Millar (handicap -5,3).
Complete results: http://www.rfea.es/competi/result2019/cross/elgoibar/index.html
FPSG National Open, Glasgow, 12-13 January
Jemma Reekie (handicap -0.8) and Sol Sweeney (handicap -2.6) competed at this weekend's Glasgow Indoor meeting. Both stepped down a distance from last weekend to win the women's 800m and men's 1500m respectively. Reekie raced to an indoor personal best of 2.03.06, which puts her fifth on the Scottish indoor all-time list, whilst Sweeney posted a solo 3.45.04.
Results: http://www.janetnixon.info/scottish/2019/IndoorOpen/
Ooredoo 10K, Doha, Qatar, 11 January
In what is now becoming an annual tradition, Eilish McColgan (handicap -2.6) was in action on the roads in Doha, where she is spending a month training in warmer climes under the guidance of her mother and coach Liz Nuttall. Having set a 31:53 personal best here 12 months ago, McColgan showed she is once again in a great place training wise, as she revised that personal best by a further two seconds, crossing the line in 31:51. That performance saw her win the women’s race and finish 10th outright.