London 10000 - 25 May 2014
Last year’s winner, double world and Olympic Champion, Mo Farah, was sitting it out on this occasion but there was still a host of leading UK athletes competing at the sharp end of the race.
Leading the way for CLC Striders was in-form Will Ferguson. Fresh from his second place in Tuesday’s White Horse, Ferguson showed his consistency over a course which a number of competitors measured at well over 10 km, to finish in an excellent 33:18, and in a field of around 12,000, Ferguson finished in 79thplace overall! Second man for the Striders was James Oram who followed up his 17:28 at the White Horse with another strong run to finish in 37:57; Dave Smeath was next , and in his first appearance for the club since the final Birmingham League fixture in February, Smeath ran strongly throughout to finish in a time of 40:02. Hot on Smeath’s heels, was-in form women’s captain, Rachel Vines, who had an excellent run to post her quickest 10km time for three years, finishing in a time of 41:09, and she was closely followed by a group of three Striders women who all had strong runs: the first of these was Vice captain Vicky Lewis who fought hard to continue her recent run of good form and post an excellent time of 42:00; next was Amanda Steer who showed excellent consistency with a time of 42:25, whilst Vicky Veness ran well to claim a time of 43:14.
The next man to finish was the effervescent Clark Lawson who had showed continued improvement with a strong time of 44:54, while George Parker showed impeccable pace judgement to bag a new PB of 47:00; Dan Harte ran well to complete the men’s line up with a time of 48:02.
Completing the women’s line-up were Beckie Boulton, who ran a new PB of 49:05 and Claire Sansome who had an excellent race to post a time of 53:43.
The overall winner was GB international Andy Vernon with a time of 29:33, whilst the women’s race was won by the fast-improving Gemma Steel in 32:53.</p>