Abbie Donnelly and Jacob Allen ran the fastest parkrun times in the UK this weekend (26th August).
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It was a weekend for fast parkruns with the Summer temperatures dropping a little bit and some top class runners rocking up for a Saturday morning time trial. It took two runners who have represented their country to make it to the top spot this weekend.
Abbie Donnelly was running at the World XC Championships in February this year out in Australia and has had a strong year since as well. Just this week the Lincoln Wellington athlete ran 16:05 at the Lincoln Wellington 5k series so a 16:16 parkrun a few days later shows the GB international is still in fine form after representing at the European 10,000m Cup earlier this summer.
Allen, a very experienced racer over 5000m with a PB of 13:43, was the fastest male athlete with 14:33 today. At Burgess parkrun, in the south-east of England, the Highgate Harrier betters his own parkrun PB by 17 seconds in what has been a quiet year since the spring. An excellent outing of 66:45 for leg three of the Welsh Castles Relay is the only result since mid April for the cross country runner.
The best of the rest
Georgie Grgec ran an excellent time at Dulwich parkrun that would usually have taken the title for fastest of the week, but is still good enough for second. 16:25 is a a second faster than the Herne Hill Harriers’ 2022 best, but in February this year she clocked 16:15 and ran 15:45 at the Podium Mile / 5K event in May.
Another runner under 15 minutes was Euan Brown of Hallamshire Harriers Sheffield with 14:54 at Wanstead Flats parkrun. It comes juts a couple of weeks after an excellent 14:10.77 at the BMC Grand Prix – World Athletics Challenge so Brown must be flying at the moment!
Sophie Wood, a parkrun regular, was third fastest female in 17:09 at Ferry Meadows parkrun and Simon Crawford third male in 15:09 at Long Eaton.
The fastest course?
Dulwich and Long Eaton both feature twice, with Dulwich taking the win due to the lower average position!
Women’s Rankings
Men’s Rankings