America-bound Beattie battles to front to take memorial 5k
WHILE most attention was focused on the 40,000 London Marathon competitors, close to 200 lined up in Wallsend Harrier’s Terry O’Gara Memorial 5k in West Allotment Country Park.
James Dunce (Tyne Bridge) set the early pace ahead of Morpeth duo Scott Beattie and Ross Floyd and Sunderland’s Kevin Calvert and Sean Hall of Gateshead.
After the completion of the opening kilometre, Dunce, who finished eighth in 2015, still led with Beattie tracking his every move.
Gaps behind the pair began to appear with Hall the first to drop away and then Calvert.
Just after half-way Beattie made a move to the front and while Dunce dug deep to stay in contention, the Morpeth teenager proved too strong and eventually pulled away to win in exactly 15 minutes.
Dunce held on for a comfortable second place just nine seconds behind as Floyd crossed the line in third place.
In winning, Beattie, who is set to take up a scholarship in America, knocked 49 seconds off his previous best 5k time while Dunce improved his best by 23 seconds.
Beattie, in his first competitive outing since lining up in the World Cross-Country Championships in Uganda, said: “I felt pretty good throughout. After all the travelling to Africa and then to America, I wasn’t sure how fit I was.’’
In the women’s race, former junior track international Stacey Smith continued to impress on her comeback by smashing the course record by 29 seconds.
North Shields Poly’s Charlotte Penfold set off briskly and was up with the leading men in the early stages with Smith 10 metres behind.
Smith was soon on Penfold’s shoulder and before the completion of the second kilometre was leading with Penfold in second and Danielle Hodgkinson in third.
Once in the lead, Smith upped the tempo and by 3k was lying in eighth place overall as Hodgkinson closed in on Penfold.
Not surprisingly, Smith began to tire in the closing stages and though she eventually finished in 10th place overall, her winning time, a pb of 16:13, is one of the fastest recorded in the UK this year.
“I’m delighted with that,’’ said Smith. “I think I overcooked it a bit between kilometres three and four for I was pretty beat up on the run to the line.’’