Finishing first ahead of 281 participants in Saturday’s Aberdeen parkrun 5km marks a small but important step along the long road which Paul Hadden hopes will take him to next year’s London marathon.
Conditions were favourable for good times with a light southerly wind facing the runners on the outward half of the beach promenade course before they made the return journey with the breeze at their backs.
Aberdeen-based Hadden was quick off his mark and moved to the front of the field in the early stages before powering away to complete the circuit in 16min 58sec.
Hadden was pleased with the result and hopes he can improve his fitness.
He said: “It was meant to be a steady run but I ended up pushing it quite hard. It was quite quick for me. It’s about 20sec outside my best time which is good because I’m just coming back after an injury.
“I’d like to do next year’s London marathon, that’s my goal. I had planned to do it this year but I got injured the week before the race, so I was disappointed to miss it.
“I still went down to watch but now I’m looking forward to actually doing it. Now I need to get some decent training done. I hope to build things up over the next few months.”
Chris Richardson (Metro Aberdeen) was second in a personal best 17:38, 12sec ahead of an unregistered runner, while parkrun regular, David Langan, making his 113th appearance in the weekly series, was fourth in 17:55.
Metro Aberdeen’s Hazel Wyness led home the women’s field in 19:38 which gave her 18th position overall.
She said: “I’m happy with that as it’s only 5sec outside my best which I did last September.”
Like Hadden, Wyness also has her eye on the 2017 London marathon after setting a personal best time of 3:10.16 in the capital last April.
She said: “I’ve no other mara-thons planned until London and I’ll start my training for that over the winter.”
There was a real scramble for second position in the women’s division of the run with Wyness’s Metro clubmates Alison Pilichos, Claire Bruce, Jill Bonthron and Sarah Milne all involved in what was an ever-changing picture.
Pilichos eventually prevailed with her trademark strong finish which took her from fourth to second in 20:08, while Bruce finished third in 20:11, Milne fourth in 20:19 and Bonthron fifth in 20:24.
