In the women’s Race
Elms’ time was significantly faster than the official world outdoor W55 record on the track of 5:17.37 by Silke Schmidt and easily a world best, though there are no official world master’s records away from the track but it was an official UK best, bettering Jane Clarke’s 5:38 by almost half a minute.
Elms run picked up 103.3% on age-grading but that was the not the highest of the race.
72-year-old Angela Copson scored an astonishing 107.2 per-cent as she ran 6:27 on chip and 6:30 on gun. That too bettered the world track record (6:38.30) by Sharon Gerl, was an unofficial world best and it decimated the previous UK road mark of Pat Gallagher (7:31) by a minute.
The men’s race
The race started very fast but most runners paid for their indiscretion and it was M40 Craig Sharp who finished the fastest to win in 4:33 (chip 4:32).
Sharp’s daughter Chloe was second in the under-20 women’s mile.
The Central Park athlete finished just ahead of M35 Dave Williams (4:33), M40 Mick Hill (4:35, 4:34 chip) and M45 winner Simon Coombes in 4:37 (4:35).
Close behind came M50 winner Mark Symes. The world masters indoor and outdoor champion got the same times as Symes and that gave him a British M50 record to better Andrew Ridley’s 4:44.
The other British record-setter Nigel Gates has been setting records for 25 years and the M65 ran 5:20 (5:18 chip) to remove Pete Molloy’s 5:27 from the record books.
Runner-up Dave Bedwell, who set a M65 indoor record for the mile this winter, also beat the old record with a 5:25 (5:23).
Other age group winners were M55 Tony Tuohy 5:00 (4:58), M60 Paul Fletcher 5:12 (5:10), M70 Richard Bloom 6:44 (6:39), M75 Ken Chapman 8:07 (8:02), M80 Doug Milsom 7:58 (7:55) and M85 Richard Pitcairn-Knowles 10:58 (10:51).
Symes easily won the men’s age-graded award with 92.5% from Gates 91.9%.
