Mo Aadan wins his first Medal for GB

Paul Woodgate Reports:

25 Laps Without a Lapse -Night of the 10k PBs 19th May 2018

In recent years UK Athletics has been holding its 10,000m Championships at the Parliament Hill track in May.  The event, Night of the 10,000m PBs, is superbly organised by Highgate Harriers, is free to spectate at and has a great atmosphere.  There’s even a beer tent on the back straight!  This year was no exception and had the added bonus of hosting the European Cup 10,000m (a team event) along with the usual series of graded races.

As seasoned track and field fans will know, the 10,000m is something of a collector’s item.  Owing to the obvious scheduling issues involved in staging a 25 lap race, the distance rarely even features at Diamond League meetings nor any of the leagues the club is in.

There were four TVH members competing this year.  Chris Smith was 24th in the C race clocking 31:43.83, a fantastic run by our top v40.  Antonio Silva was 25th in the B race managing to keep inside the half hour in 29:51.07.  Ann-Marie McGlynn was 29th in the women’s A race in a time of 33:53.29.  As it was the European Cup, Anne-Marie was wearing the national vest of the Republic of Ireland.  Last, but by no means least, Mohamud Aadan was 16th in the men’s A race with 28:39.79.  Mo ran a new PB, an improvement of nearly 30 seconds on the old one and getting within 20 of the European Championship qualifying standard.  He was also third scorer in a Silver Medal winning performance by the GB team.  Seventeen of Mo’s laps were sub 70 seconds and none were slower than 71.9.

There was also a good turnout from TVH to support the competitors including Tracy Barlow, Victoria Carter, Chris Thomas, Phil Whetton, Paul Oppe, James Malcolm, Paul Woodgate, Hugo Cayssials, Sarah Johnson, Alex Mundell, Caspar Donnison, Lucy Ferguson, Eric Shirley and Connor Kissane-Wood.