Hillingdon Athletic Club

If you were partying it up at Wasing Park over the weekend, you would’ve already seen our fancy dress… or you may’ve guessed from our teaser…

We took to the Friday night party as crayons!🎨

Safe to say we had a vibrant party and there’s plenty more coverage from the weekend to come (There wasn’t any phone signal)😂

Happy National Running day from everyone at Hillingdon Athletic Club!🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

We’ll be taking on one of our favourite events on the calendar this weekend at !

Last year we all dressed up as minions, any guesses as to what we’ve drawn up for this year?!🤔

We’ll be bringing updates to our socials over the weekend, stay tuned!📣

Last year was despicable, this year is a little more colourful…

Gary Makes Team England🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

18 months ago, after achieving my goal of earning a Good For Age time for the London Marathon, I set myself a new long-term challenge of one day representing England in a marathon or, as I put it, “getting to wear an England vest”.

To achieve that, I’d need to finish in the top three of competing runners in my age group in one of four qualifying races held each year. My plan was to maintain fitness (by optimizing my exercise, diet, sleep, and stress) whilst hoping others lost theirs.

In the meantime, the plan was to enter some of the qualifying races to see where I was at (there is a minimum qualifying time of 3:40:00) and to measure my progress (if any). To that end, last Bank Holiday Monday, I ran the Milton Keynes Marathon.

The good news is I finished it in 3:28:07 but the truly fantastic news is that, of those competing in my age group, I came 2nd and have just been officially notified that I’ve qualified to represent England at the 2027 International Marathon in Manchester.

I’ll get to wear an England vest!

Yesterday’s training session was a hot one!☀️

Well done to the group for turning up and getting it done! Stay safe out there in this heat!🥵

Spencer and Paul take on the Edinburgh Half Marathon, read about their experiences here:
https://hillingdonac.co.uk/edinburgh_half_marathon_26/

Connell Conquers Kintyre🏆

Congratulations to Connell Metcalf, taking first place in the Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon on Sunday 24th May. Connell clocked a time of 1:17:17 to take first place, achieving success in a major Scottish athletics race.

The Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon, also known as the MOKRUN was named the UK’s number 1 half marathon by Runners World in 2010. It’s flat and fast, with a downhill finish, making it an excellent race for achieving a personal best! The Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon starts on the Esplanade next to Kinloch Green, running through town and countryside, including a kilometre of running on the hard sandy Westport beach. The final mile of both races is on a slight downward gradient into the town and through the main street, finishing back on the esplanade.

Well done, Connell!

Northala Fields parkrun wasn’t an event on the provisional fixture list for the Summer Series, but it claims the top spot as the highly attended fixture of the Series so far! Northala Fields parkrun was truly ‘taken over’ with 39 Hillingdon AC members, and they didn’t mess around in the heat! A bundle of PB’s, top of the chart finishes and some amazing age graded performances, very impressive in what was energy sapping heat!

Rob Thompson (16:14) led the HAC 1-2-3-4-5, making his parkrun debut, or not (IYKYK), putting the fastest time down at Northala since 2024. Tom Squires, also making a debut at Northala Fields (16:43) finished in second place. A triple PB haul from Harry Hopkins (16:55), Ryan Hamdy (17:36) and Shaun Burns (18:34) completed the top 5 finishers!

Also finishing sub-20 was Jeff Shotton (19:21), Dan Nolan with a PB (19:41), Edward Spencer (19:45) and Alex Giffin making his debut at Northala (19:58).

Continuing the success was Nikki Penty-Alvarez, finishing as first female (20:56). Mel Spencer was second female (22:16), Karen O’Rourke was third female, clocking a new PB (22:19). There was 6 HAC females within the top 7 finishers, with Aimee Horn (23:33), Jodie Thompson recording a new PB and her 50th parkrun! (24:04) and Stephanie Sungtong (25:01) rounding off a great top 7!

Full event report is now live on our website, link in bio🔗