2019 Outdoors

[LuckySpikes]

Jenny Nesbitt was the surprise winner of the Loughborough Cross Country. Only the first 2 were guaranteed selection for the World Cross Country with others who competed here to be added to the team being announced this Tuesday. Jess Piasecki grabbed the other automatic spot, 13 seconds behind Nesbitt. She had been 7 seconds ahead of her going into the last lap.

In the men's race Adam Hickey & Ross Millington booked their tickets to Aarhus. Marc Scott was a non-starter.

[LuckySpikes]

Frankly, The Big Half looked like just another race set up for Mo to please the crowd and not to have to extend himself too much.

Charlotte Purdue won the women's in 70:38. Expected a bit more from Charlotte Arter in 3rd - perhaps just a slight off-day?
A special mention for Hayley Carruthers in 4th place, sub-72 I think and beating her PB (2018 GNR) by almost 3 minutes. She only started running 3 years ago aged 23, initially running 95 mins for the half and 43 mins for 10km. Since then she's come on leaps and bounds and my guess is that in London she'll smash her 2:36 marathon PB from Toronto last October. If you read the fastrunning.com website you probably already know about her since they've run a few articles on her.

[LuckySpikes]

Full team of 24 selected for the World Cross Country Championships - https://www.britishathletics.org.uk/...championships/

In the end, they selected the top 6 in each of the senior races at the Loughborough trials.

[larkim]

Doesn't exactly look like a team destined to bring medals home at the senior level. Fingers crossed for the U20s though - my son keeps reminding me that he beat Matt Willis in the U11 county champs ;-)

[LuckySpikes]

Callum Hawkins is running the Lisbon Half on Sunday. See the Live Streaming Links thread for details of the broadcast. Cracking women's field with Cheruiyot, Burka, Linet Masai & Bahta.

[Occasional Hope]

Scott Overall and Steph Twell won the Reading Half Marathon today with 1.03.48 for Scott, not sure about Steph's time but somewhere around 1.11.

[LuckySpikes]

Laura Weightman is entered for the Parelloop 10k in the Netherlands this Sunday. After running the Trafford 10k in 31:59 a couple of weeks ago I wonder if she might be moving up to the 5000 this summer? She did well at the Commonwealths in the 5.

In the same race on Sunday there are 2 England Teams of 4 men and 4 women, headed by Jess Piasecki.

[LuckySpikes]

Laura Weightman is entered for the Parelloop 10k in the Netherlands this Sunday. After running the Trafford 10k in 31:59 a couple of weeks ago I wonder if she might be moving up to the 5000 this summer? She did well at the Commonwealths in the 5.
...

Laura Weightman was3rd in 31:40, taking her to 5th on the UK all-time list.

[larkim]

Jess Judd ran 32:42 at the Arley 10k over the weekend. She's currently showing as running for Blackburn, she always used to be Chemlsford - has she moved?

[LuckySpikes]

Jess Judd ran 32:42 at the Arley 10k over the weekend. She's currently showing as running for Blackburn, she always used to be Chemlsford - has she moved?

Yes. Moved in with her boyfriend, perhaps?

[larkim]

How dare she have a personal life :-)

Just struck me as an odd club to join - no disrespect to them, but they're not at the top of the competition pile. I suppose goegraphy doesn't help though - no point joining Sale or Trafford when you can't get anywhere near without an hour+ drive, and as someone who clearly likes to race a lot she won't be getting a huge amount of competition on her doorstep.

[trickstat]

Jess Judd ran 32:42 at the Arley 10k over the weekend. She's currently showing as running for Blackburn, she always used to be Chemlsford - has she moved?

She's been showing as Blackburn since sometime last year. I did wonder if it was something to do with her Dad who has a 'Northern' accent, but I think he's actually a Yorkshireman. Perhaps it may well be something to do with moving there with a partner. More challenging training terrain than south Essex (she was at Thurrock before Chelmsford), I would think. Sale would probably be a better bet if she wanted to win more medals in road and cross-country relays, but sometimes sticking with the smaller club allows you more freedom from feeling pressured to turn out when you want to. There's also something to be said for the challenge of running the second leg in a relay from well back in the field and picking off the opposition to get a fast leg.

[LuckySpikes]

After a couple of weeks of collegiate meetings the USA outdoor season ramps up this week with the pros getting involved. There's the Texas Relays and the Florida Relays where fast sprint times are usually produced. PSD & Cindy Ofili are entered in Florida. For distance runners the Stanford Invitational is the meeting. Molly Huddle & Emily Sisson are in the 10,000 ahead of them running the London Marathon in 4 weeks' time.

[LuckySpikes]

Yes! Gaylord Silly is running World Cross! He's 33 now.

Moira Stewartova is there again in the women's. Unfortunately her big rival, Anna Fordova, was unable to make the team.

[LuckySpikes]

Fabulous 10,000 for Emily Sisson at the Stanford Invitational last night. She ran 30:49 to go 3rd on the US all-time list ahead of the likes of Kastor, Goucher & Cragg and behind only Huddle and Flanagan. She ran the last 3000 in 8:56! Huddle herself was 2nd in 30:58. They both left the collegians for dust, the best of whom was Allie Ostrander, 32:06.