FOR Jack Millar the Telford 10k yesterday will long be remembered as a seminal moment in his running career.
Sunday December 12th was the day that the Bristol & West AC runner (pictured top right) finally cracked the magical 30 minutes barrier for 10k as he set a personal best of 29mins 58secs.
For a good club runner running inside 30 minutes represents a huge and significant achievement so Millar can rightfully feel highly satisfied with his effort.
That he didn’t even make the top 20 with that time – Millar was 27th – underlines the continuing quality of the race with the top eight running inside 29mins 30secs, 27 beating the 30 minutes barrier and 61 men under 31 minutes.
Millar went into the race with a lifetime best of 30:13 set in the Speedway 10k, near Chepstow, last year when he also clocked 14;20 for 5k on the road, a result that suggested a sub 30 was just a matter of time. But many runners try and often fall short of that ambition so hats off to Millar for joining the club.
Numerous other runners in the field of 1,120 also set lifetime bests, including plenty of Millar’s clubmates at Bristol & West AC.
Ben Robinson has recently re-joined the club after a spell with Gloucester AC and for the second time this year he improved his PB, going from 30:43 at the Speedway race to 30:04 just behind Millar. Surely Robinson too, can’t be far away from also going under 30.
Josh Moody (pictured bottom right) slashed 45 seconds off his PB with 30:30 in 47th and there were also bests for Daniel Madden (33:53) and over 45 veteran Tariq Kurd, who clocked 35:41 to carve 41 seconds off the PB he ran in Newport at the end of October so he is clearly in terrific form.
Jack Bancroft ran solidly (30:29) but missed his best of 30:16 while Ben Westhenry (31:26), Adam Stokes (32:35) and Andrew Salmon also fell short.
Top B&W runner in the women’s race was Katrina Entwistle and she also took advantage of the quality field and fast course to completely re-write her PB. Starting with a best of 38:56 from the 2019 Bristol 10k Entwistle finished in 37:07 for a staggering leap forward. More is sure to come from her.
Over 40 veteran Liz Sanigar won’t forget the race in a hurry as she lopped 32 seconds off her two-year-old PB with a time of 39mins 07secs as she finished ahead of clubmates Sarah Everitt (39:45) and Clare Jolliffe (39:57).