Champions of the Road: BM10k
Brighton was the perfect stage for this year England 10k Championships providing a great race and some high-class performances, with Nick Goolab and Emily Hosker-Thornhill emerging as this year’s England 10k individual Champions, and Leeds City AC and local club Brighton Phoenix taking the men's and women’s titles respectively.
10k championships
The outright race winner and England 10k Champion Nick Goolab (Club: Belgrave Harriers, Coach: Craig Winrow) who ran away with the race from about the half way point to win in a scintillating 28:22, taking over 2 minutes off his previous best of 30:36 from 2015. Goolab demonstrated what a versatile athlete he is with his first serious race at 10k in four years to win such a dominant performance over a class field. Adam Hickey (Southend-on-Sea AC, Eamon Martin) capped a superb cross-country season with a PB on the roads to finish runner up in 28:53, whilst Andrew Heyes (Hallamshire Harriers, Steven Vernon) was delighted with his first sub 29 minute 10k and third place.
Six men ran under 29 minutes and a further 19 men dipped inside 30 minutes with many runners smashing their personal bests.
In the women’s race Scotland’s Steph Twell 31:58 was the overall race winner with fellow Scot Mhairi McClennan finishing second in 33:00. However, it was Emily Hosker Thornhill (Aldershot Farnham and District, Mick Woods) who took third overall in the race in 33:04 adding the 2019 England Championship title to her 2019 English Cross-Country title. Bristol and West’s Kate Reed 33:08 continued her return to form to post her fastest 10k time on the roads since 2008 to become runner up in the England Championships, whilst marathon specialist Dani Nimmock (City of Norwich) was delighted with her PB 33:41 to take bronze.
17 women raced to 36 minutes and under including 18 year old Grace Copeland (Wimborne, Bob Smith) posting a superb 33:54 to finish 6th overall.
Club Team 10k competition
In addition to some superb individual performances in Brighton over the weekend the club’s 10k team competition also produced some great team results.
The top three men’s and women’s teams were determined by the accumulative times of their top three eligible runners. Leeds City AC continued their streak of team victories to win the men’s title, whilst local club Brighton Phoenix took the women’s title.
Strong individual performances by Phil Sesemann (Coach: Andrew Henderson) with a time of 28:58 and Graham Rush (29:10) in 5th and 9th overall respectively meant that team mate Mick Hill V40 (Bud Baldaro) with a highly respectable 31:40 was enough to secure a convincing team time of 1:29:48. In second place were Bedford & County AC with a strong run from Ben Alcock in 15th backed up by Matt Leach (Philip O'Dell) in 26th and Matt Bergin (Simon Goodwin) who was 29th. Between the three of them they accumulated a team time of 1:30:16. Highgate Harriers also put in a strong bid for a podium team place. They were just 3 seconds separating them from Bedford, but they managed to put two minutes between themselves and the fourth scoring team of Tonbridge. Roger Poolman led the team home in 8th place individually with a time of 29:10 performance. He was backed up by Chris Rainsford and Robert Wilson to give a team time of 1:32:19.
The trio of Beth Kidger (Joel Kidger), Tara Bage (Jon Bigg) and Catherine Bounds made sure it was a local win for the Brighton Pheonix women’s team. Kidger placed 7th overall with a time of 33:57 and strong performances by her team mates led to a 1:50:41 finishing time. Hastings AC also capitalised on the home advantage and the combined efforts of Lizzie Clarke, Rachael Mulvey (Terry Skelton) and Jenna French saw them to a team time of 1:51:15. Once again Highgate made it into the team medals. 9th placed Hannah Viner put in a strong run for the team which included Yasmin Goater and Nicola Audhlam-Gardiner V45 brought the team home in 1:54:30.