Stubbington Green Runners

RUN sub-40 minutes in a 10km race and you would expect a top 100 finish. But such was the quality of the Chichester Priory 10km, with the first nine runners ducking under 30-minutes, that the rest of the field was left trailing in their wake.

Rod Nairn headed a well-represented Stubbington contingent for the popular 10km race which was run in perfect conditions.

Yet despite crossing the finish line close to the Chichester Festival Theatre in a pretty rapid 38min 54sec, Rod's time was only good enough for 136th among the men, and with 27 female runners already ahead of him!

Stubbington team-mate Jon Leigh continued his build-up towards the London Marathon in fine fashion with a rapid 40:43 for 196th , and Dave King clocked 42:08 for 261st . Andy Lee doesn't appear on the official results, but he finished some 15 seconds behind Dave, an amazing improvement of almost three minutes on his 10km time a year ago.

For the women, Lauren Coates had a good race to finish in 44:23 for 81st place - ironically, Lauren ran almost a minute faster in more difficult conditions at the Stubbington 10km a month earlier.

Stubbington results -

Men:
274th: Nick Davies 42:33;
465th: Simon Holford 46:46;
489th: Gilbert Yeates 47:17;
510th: Peter Moreton 47:54;
546th: John Fairhurst 48:58;
576th: David Pheby 49:47;

Women:
312th: Gill Ward 56:26;
325th: Liz Hall 56:53;
429th: Anne Fairhurst 1:01.30;
454th: Sian Pheby 1:03.15;

This was the 15th staging of the race, which attracted 1,400 runners from all over the country, and which thanks to the Spring-like conditions saw both course records smashed in one of the best and fastest 10km races seen on the south coast for 20 years.

This race, organised by the Rotary Club of Chichester Priory and sponsored by Chichester Nuffield Hospital, incorporated the English Championships for the 10km distance.

Leigh Harriers' Peter Riley was the man who set a new course record, clocking 29min 2sec to finish 35 seconds inside the old mark, which has stood for nine years. That's 4min 40sec a mile pace!

All of the pre-race favourites were soon grouped together in contention for the first 3km, with the first ten, Riley, Keith Cullen (Highgate Harriers), Jermaine Mays (Kent AC), Andy Norman (Altrincham & District), Moumin Geele, Haggai Chepkwony (Army AA), Daniel Agustus (Sale Harriers), Tom Payn (Birchfield Harriers), Tendai Chinhanhu (Poole Runners) and Adrian Marriott (Wells City) setting an astonishing pace.

The first sign of activity came just past the Rolls Royce assembly plant at Goodwood as Cullen stepped up the pace but only Riley and Mays followed. This group of three then kept together for 2kms with Cullen mainly forcing the pace. The bends at Lavant village saw the Northern man, Riley, pushing on the pace with Mays being dropped by the 6km marker.

However as the leading runners emerged from Lavant, Riley edged away a few metres at a time and by the 8km marker had a clear lead. He went into the finish strongly in 29.02. Cullen had to be content with second place, but even his time of 29.24 was 11 seconds ahead of the previous course record.

In total nine male runners beat the magical 30 minute mark, more than the previous 14 years altogether. The Inter-Area match was won by the North men's team with the South in second.

The women's event followed a more traditional pattern with one athlete going for gold straight from the gun.

On this occasion it was top British international Hayley Yelling (Windsor, Slough, Eton and Harrow). Yelling's race tactics were made clear from the start - she had come to win and there was no stopping her.

Running in a group of good male club athletes she had a consistent pace throughout the race and ended up winning by 1 min and 20 seconds from the Australian international Natalie Harvey, who now runs for South London Harriers.

Yelling's winning time was 32.31, some one minute and 12 seconds ahead of the course record set in 2005 by Birhan Dagne. This time Dagne, who runs for Belgrave Harriers, was below her best struggling with a knee problem. The third runner home was Jade Wright of Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers in 33.57.

With thanks for race details from the official race website. For full race results, log onto: www.chichester10krace.org.uk/