Great Britain international Callum Hawkins entered his first Scottish 5K with the full intention of ‘blasting it’ on the seaside course at Silverknowes – and seeing where that took him.
What transpired was a course record run of 14.19 in windy conditions and an impressive margin of victory for the Kilbarchan AAC athlete of 24 seconds on silver medallist Craig Ruddy of Inverclyde (14.43) with Shettleston’s Tewolde Mengisteab in third in 14.48.
Now Hawkins, who reckoned that course record on the Firth of Forth coastline would have been even lower but for a slow – by his standards – last kilometre, aims to break 14 minutes on the track. A forthcoming meeting in Belgium in May will be his next opportunity to improve his 5000m best.
Lothian Running Club’s Sarah Inglis made the most of her break from studies at Trinity Western University in Canada to win the Women’s gold in 16.27 as she was joined on the podium by Josephine Moultrie of VP-Glasgow and Stephie Pennycook of Fife AC.
Pennycook won the Women’s U20 medal as well at 16.59 with GB cross country international, Inverclyde AC’s Jonny Glen, taking the Men’s U20 gold in 14.54 while in the Masters categories there was a fifth successive gold victory for Kerry Liam-Wilson of Ronhill Cambuslang . Garscube’s Lesley Chisholm won the Women’s Masters gold.
Callum’s 14.19 time improved significantly on the previous course record at Silverknowes of 14.35 – set by three men in three different years: Chris MacKay, Ross Houston (2012) and Andrew Butchart (2013).
‘The idea was to go out and blast and see where that took me – I did exactly that,’ smiled Callum, who raced the 10,000m for Scotland at Glasgow 2014 at Hampden last summer and was fifth at the Euro Cross U23 for GB.
‘I enjoyed and I am pleased to win the Scottish 5k title but that last kilometre, into the wind on the way back, was pretty tough. I did that in about three minutes and was flapping around like a swimmer apparently!
‘The first three k I have on the Garmin as around 8.22 so it had been going very well up until the point where you start to turned back into the wind. I think everyone would have found that tough tonight.
‘This is the first time I have run here and it is a good course – it would be absolutely brilliant if you had a calm evening at some stage. But there have been some good runs and I’m delighted with a course record.
‘I am looking to 5000m on the track this summer. My PB is 14.03 so I really want to see if I can get that to between 13.00 and 13.45 at some point. There is a race in Belgium coming up where the pace is supposed to be 13.11 – so I will probably be at the back hanging on but hopefully that drags me to a good PB!’
Hawkins earned an A standard in the scottishathletics Road Race Grand Prix with Ruddy, who won the Scottish 10-Mile title, taking a B standard. Inglis just missed out on the Women’s standards.
‘I am pleased to win and it was a good run on the night,’ said Sarah.
‘I’ve managed to squeeze in the Road Relays at Livingston and this 5k Champs during a spell at home – and it is squeezed in because I am off to America on Friday for altitude training in Boulder, Colorado.
‘It has been a good few weeks at home after the indoor season and of course Lothian won the Relays at Livingston. The altitude training should set me up well for the outdoor season and there’s a great group at Trinity Western University with about 25 of us training really hard.’
Once again, the Run and Become Self Transcendence race helped raise 5k standards in Scotland.
With more than 315 finishers, around 180 were under the 19 minute mark and, at the top end of the men’s race more people ran faster than in 2014.
Central AC won the Men’s team crown with three athletes in the top 10 – Alex Hendry (4th), Alistair Hay (5th) and Cameron Milne (8th). Scott McDonald (9th) didn’t even make their scoring team, demonstrating the depth at that particular club. Inverclyde AC took the silvers and Ronhill Cambuslang the bronzes.
Fife AC won the Women’s team golds – another medal for Pennycook – with Lothian Running Club taking silver and Ronhill Cambuslang the bronzes.
Scottish 5k Medallists:
Men’s: Callum Hawkins, Craig Ruddy, Tewolde Mengisteab
Women’s: Sarah Inglis, Josephine Moultrie, Stephie Pennycook
Men’s Masters: Kerry Liam Wilson, Steve Wylie, Kenny Campbell
Women’s Masters: Lesley Chisholm, Edel Mooney, Gillian Sangster
Men’s U20 : Jonny Glen, Andrew Lawler, Craig Jardine
Women’s U20: Stephie Pennycook, Mhairi Maclennan, Rachael Dunn
Men’s Teams: Central, Inverclyde AC, Ronhill Cambuslang
Women’s Teams: Fife AC, Lothian Running Club, Ronhill Cambuslang
