Best times for de-camps and England in fine track displays
THERE were personal best performances for Richard de-camps over 1500m and Marcus England over 10,000m as Cheltenham Harriers athletes enjoyed a successful week of racing.
At the British Milers’ Club Grand Prix in Manchester, de-camps lined up alongside teammate Dan Owen in the 1500m D race.
Both athletes completed the opening lap in just under 64 seconds, with de-camps reaching 800m in fourth place in around 2:07 with Owen just behind him.
with 700m remaining Owen made his move and pulled clear of the main pack with de-camps also running solo in third place.
Going through the bell in 2:54 and 2:55 respectively, the two Harriers had strong last laps with de-camps managing to come right onto Owen’s shoulder as they reached the home straight.
However, whilst Cardiff’s Sam Blake took a 3:48.67 victory, Owen was able to hold off his rival to claim second in a season’s best 3:55.41.
Just 0.3 seconds behind, de-camps lowered his 2014 PB by 0.29 seconds as he finished third in 3:55.71.
There was an intriguing 800m debut for Linton Gardiner in the G race and the decathlete went through the opening lap in 57 seconds in second place.
After taking the lead on the back straight Gardiner was pipped on the line in a time of 1:56.68.
England was one of three Harriers that made the trip to Tipton for the Midland 10,000m Championship.
Having set a track PB of 32:58.31 at Highgate in May and a road PB of 32:34 at Bleachley in June, England was hoping to surpass both times and break the 32:30 barrier.
The Cheltenham athlete quickly established himself in the five man lead group and they reached 5000m in 16:07.
The pace picked up again and England found himself adrift before passing Chris Perrin (Cannock) with 3km to go to move into fourth.
England set his sights on third place and passed Dan Robinson (BRAT) at around the 8000m mark and crossed the line in an excellent time of 32:27.74 to claim the Midland bronze medal.
Alex Lee was third in the BMC regional 5000m A race in 15:14.59 and in the 800m A race de-camps finished seventh in a time of 1:57.04.
England followed up his midweek success by lining up alongside teammate Eliot Taylor at the Wye Valley 10 mile road race in Hereford and claimed victory in 56:39 with Taylor third in 58:09.
In the York Millenium Bridge 5km Graham Rush enjoyed a win with a time of 14:35.
At parkruns, Lee (16:06), Ben Price (16:09) and Dom James (16:30) filled the first three places in Cheltenham as John Parker set the event’s V45 record with 16:31.
Dan Minors (18:02), George Hawthorne (18:04), Dave Rantell (18:42) and James Wilkinson (19:50) followed before Hannah D’ambrosio (20:05) and Georgia Palmer (20:18) were the second and third ladies home.
Beth Hawling (17:41) was the first lady home and sixth overall at the Burgess parkrun in London whilst Alister Brown (18:41) was first home at the Buncrana event in Ireland.
Corin Hughes (17:13) and Mark James (17:27) were third and fourth at the Kingsway event in Gloucester whilst Matt Lambourne ran two parkruns (18:37 and 19:31) in one day in Copenhagen.