Low handicaps rolling stateside

Whilst many of Britain’s most talented endurance runners were battling it out at the European Cross Country Trial, at the weekend many of their contemporaries, who are on athletics scholarships in the USA, took to the roads for Thanksgiving Turkey Trots after finishing their cross-country season the previous weekend.

Two of the top ten performances for men, over the past seven days, came from British runners who are currently studying in the states and two of the top women’s performances came from Brits who have based themselves over there after completing scholarship degrees.

Matthew Clowes (handicap -4.2) got the top spot on the list after running a personal best time for 5k (13:58) at the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot in San Jose, California. Matt has been busy running cross-country for Concordia University and so hasn’t registered a road performance since the summer. This superb performance, that was delivered on Thanksgiving Day (last Thursday), improved his current handicap score by 0.3 but it is still not as low as it was in the summer when he was home and racing in the UK. His score has been as low as -5.3.

We managed to catch up with Matt who said, "The race went out pretty conservatively, which for me was nice. I have a tendency to run the first mile of a 5k too fast, which always catches up with me come mile three. I felt really comfortable sitting in the front pack for the most of the race. I think the lack of speed work in my training was exposed in the last 100m where I lost contact with the leader,but overall I was really happy with the result and where I placed. It was the deepest field ever assembled.

"I knew I was in good shape though, I had just come back from the NAIA XC National Championships in Kansas, 4 days before; where I placed a disappointing 6th due to lower back issues. My training for this autumn season has being going great. I’ve been working more on longer tempos and intervals, which I think really helped my strength in the race. I think just the lack of speed work and the timing of the race really played apart in the lack of turn over."

It will be interesting to see if he comes home for Christmas and takes to the roads during the holidays. One of his favourite events is the Ribble Valley 10k (Matt pictured there last year) so all eyes will be on that.

Second on this week’s men’s list is Tom Anderson (handicap -4.0). Tom ran 22:01 for the Drumstick Dash 4.65 miles in Indianapolis, which knocked 0.4 off his previous score. Tom is studying at Butler University but has managed some outings on the road in the USA this autumn.

Second on the women’s list is Charlotte Browning (handicap 1.3). Charlotte ran 16:34 for the 5k distance at the Turkey Stuffer event in Springfield Oregon, indicating that her injury worries may be a thing of the past, whilst Kirsty Legg (handicap 0.6) joined Matt Clowes at the Silcon Valley Turkey Trot and recorded 16:38 for the 5k distance.

For more details on their performances and the top ten male and female performances from the last seven days click here.