UK 10K Champs & Hatfield Broad Oak 10K

Many of our distance runners were in action on Bank Holiday Monday, at the BUPA 10K, which incorporated the UK Championships, and at the Hatfield Broad Oak 10K, which is an event which has regularly lured our athletes for over 25 years. Over the two races, Darren Southcott and Kat Gundersen ran the quickest times (in the BUPA event) while a quartet scooped the team prize at Hatfield.

In recent years the BUPA 10K, in London, has attracted an extremely good field, due particularly to the encouragement it gives to good quality club runners. Clubs are given some free entries for both men and women, and elite athletes are also given guaranteed entries. The only downside is that the course has a lot of twists and turns and is regarded as "slow", especially so the further back one goes, with the vast numbers participating - 12,000! The men's race was won by Andy Vernon in 28.38, while Jo Pavey took the women's title in 32.56.

Kat Gundersen led home our quartet of women in a good time of 39.08, 17 seconds off the PB she set back in 2010. Suzanne Turvey ran 39.45, over a minute off her 2013 best. Rachel Lund clocked 41.14, also around a minute down on her best. That trio finished within the top 125 of the women's race. And W50 Karen Balcombe ran 47.21 for a very decent 21st place in her age group.

Darren Southcott led our men home in 33.24 after going through halfway in a nifty 16.14. Tomaz Plibersek followed him in, running a controlled tempo training run to clock 34.28. There was a good little battle between Pete Caton and Julian Russell, within touching distance for long periods (pictured above) before Caton just took the glory, 36.28 to 36.32. Good PBs for both of these improving athletes. M40 James Perry ran 43.26, also as a tempo training run after an achilles niggle, while M55 Stuart Phillips ran 48.29.

Since the 1980s our men have often been first team in the 10K held at Hatfield Broad Oak, a picturesque village in the heart of Essex. This year there were almost 1300 finishers.

After 4K our Tom Beedell (pictured below) was alone in the front with local favourite Mark Newton of Springfield Striders who had run 2hrs32mins in the London Marathon a month ago. From 6K our man forged ahead, but by 8K two sets of breathing closed from behind - Newton and our Bertie Powell! It was then hard-fought to the finish, with Newton initially dropping both of our men but Tom found hidden reserves and reeled him in around 100m before the end to take the victory in 33.41. Bertie was 3rd in 33.57, a surprisingly good result given his ongoing injury problems.

Tom's brother Simon Beedell was running on heavy legs following a 4-minute victory in the tough 20K Maverick Trail Race in Dorset on Saturday, but he still eked out a 14 second PB as he clocked 34.40. The benefits of his marathon training (2hrs36mins in the London).

Fourth to make up the team prize was M60 Dave Cox, who ran around with son Robbie in 37.05 to finish 22nd and 23rd. Dave remains 2nd in the UK M60 rankings with his 36.24 on New Years Day in Hyde Park. Rob was continuing his recovery from a nasty achilles problem. M55 Richard Holland who, along with Dave Cox and Tony Pamphilon, won a silver medal in the National Masters Road Relay last week, clocked 38.57 for 50th place. Bertie's dad, M60 Trevor Powell, ran a very decent 47.49 for 356th place.