Yasmin Marghini produced an outstanding 5,000m performance at the Stanford Invitational track and field meet in California last weekend, writes Geoff Jerwood.
She placed eighth in the second heat against a field of international standard competitors and recorded a huge PB of 16:07.23, an improvement of more than 31 seconds.
Marghini moves up to ninth in the UK women’s 5,000m rankings and second in the U23 women’s list.
The Boise State University fresher is now second on the Herne Hill women’s 5,000m all-time list, with only recent World Universities cross country silver medallist Saskia Millard having ever run faster for this distance on the track among Harriers’ female athletes.
Marghini will seek to build on this big breakthrough in the NCAA track and field series, where she will be representing her university team.
The weekend also saw road racing PBs in marathons and half marathons both at home and overseas.
Max Rose headed the men in red and black with a PB of 2:43:02 at Sunday’s Manchester Marathon.
Next in was M50 Jonathan Ratcliffe in 2:48:17, no less than his 70th sub three- hours marathon.
Other Harriers to enjoy PB success in Manchester were Jonathan Boyle (2:53:10), M50 James Cooper (2:59:14), M45 Mark Preskett (3:03:48), Marcus Harrow (3:08:36) and M40 Ian Jack (3:10:11).
M55 Richard Stansfield (3:48:19) and W40 Samantha Whiting (3:50:38) completed the list of Herne Hill finishers on the day.
A number of Harriers raced at the Paris Marathon on Sunday, with Eric Dol clocking 2:46:24, followed by marathon debutants Alex Russell (2:52:25) and Steven Pugh (2:58:11).
Keith Collins-Achong (2:59:23) and Aimee Hargreaves (3:01:57) ran very good first times.
Hayley Shearman improved her best time by 10 minutes with 3:20:06.
M55 Andrew Simms was only a few seconds outside his PB (3:29:41).
Andrew Warburton ran a PB of 69:14 to place 74th at the Berlin Half Marathon on Sunday. Andrew Clarke was not far behind (70:02) and M45 Matthew Williams ran a PB (84:25).
Oliver Walker ran 74:21 for 35th place and a PB at the Reading Half Marathon.
English Schools 800m medallist Keeran Sriskandarajah (U17) ran a fast 600m time of 1:24.47 at the Crawley AC Early Spring Open Meeting on Sunday.
Jacob Alley clocked 1:34.48 with U15 Lucy Wright (1:41.51) and M60 Ian Strong (2:46.50) also in action.
U13 Sophie Wright ran 1,200m in 4:18.86 and also 75m in 10.99, with U13 Zacchaeus Kelman timed at 11.51 for 75m.
Freddie Hake ran a quick 39.2 in the U15 300m races with Lucy Wright timed at 44.55.
U17 Khelya Ekwe (44.56) and U15 Lily Kitto (49.83) were also in action.