Middlesex 10K Road Championships (October 2017)
Victoria Park 1st of October
ABDISHAKUR ABDULLE, started to go clear with 4km remaining of the 10k but it was a close race for nearly all of the way Alastair Aitken reports.
It was after a rather protracted start, in which Alex Milne (2:23.17 in the London) lost out by a few seconds. Nevertheless, he was in the lead with Mohamed Hassan Mohamed, who was doing a training run for half the race, so he did not to aggravate an old injury.
It was at half way, in the 3 laps race on the paths, things looked intriguing as a close knit bunch were running together, ahead of the field of 300 odd.
They were Milne, Hassan, Abdi, Mohammed (Daud) Mohamed (World Championship 5k runner),and Antonio Silva.
At 6k Milne stepped up the pace and then, with 4k to go Abdi went to the front and although chased by Silva and Milne, held on well to win.
Abdi’s Hillingdon AC Somali coach, Idris Hamud, remarked “I was very pleased with Abdi’s run. I thought the boys running longer distances like Silva, would be stronger near the end to take him on. I was very happy he kept it up to the finish”
First Over 70 runner, Bill O’Connor, an ‘Ever Present London Marathon runner’ looked back to when he was a young man and said “I ran 31:06 for 10k in New Zealand and trained with Eddie Gray, who was 3rd in the International (World) cross country in San Sebastian in 1971”. About being an ‘Every Present’ runner now he just said “It’s great”
Isabel Clark (31) was a convincing women’s winner in 35:20 but remarked that her best race was when she found it tough, trying to hang on to the winner (Lauren Deadman) when she was second in the Newham 10k in July but, she did her fastest time of 34:48.
She added “I did run for Avon County as a schoolgirl but then gave it up till a year ago and, my coach David Chalfen has been brilliant as, he plans my training & racing, which is something I have never done before.”