British international athlete Luke Traynor recorded the fastest time for a road 10k by a Scot for more than two years in a record breaking run in Glasgow on Friday night.
Traynor’s official time of 28:32 at the Brian Goodwin Memorial 10k moves him to third in the all-time Scottish rankings over the distance, behind Allister Hutton’s 28:13 set in 1984 and Andy Butchart’s 28:28 at the London 10,000 in May 2016.
Traynor’s time also represented a 42-second course record, eclipsing Callum Hawkins’ 2017 time at Bellahouston Harriers’ flagship event – itself the fastest 10k time on the road by a Scot anywhere in the world last year.
“I wanted to shoot for 29 minutes so I set out at the pace, but I picked it up in the second half – I just felt great,” Traynor said. “I only started to feel it in the last couple of kilometres. I knew if I worked hard up the second hill and got to the 7k mark I could grind it out from there.”
The Giffnock North AC runner is now targeting a quick time in the 5000 metres on the track at the Morton Games in Ireland on July 19 – a time that would meet the ‘A’ standard needed to qualify for the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team for the European Championships in Berlin the following month.
“I want to go for 13:30 in Ireland, so from here it is back to the track training. I will pull back the mileage a bit and get into the sessions,” he said.
Without a coach for the past couple of months and still without a sponsor, Traynor has been training back in the UK after a winter spent with Mammoth Track Club in California. However, his mix of “consistent mileage, good sleep, not working and living at home” is reaping benefits.
“This proves that what I am doing is working. I am using racing to earn money. I do not need bundles of money, but sponsorship would help with the little things like getting fresh trainers, regular massages and physio treatment,” Traynor said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here