Athletics scholar on track for 2012
22 March 2010
It's a big season ahead for Sports Scholar student Jonny Mellor.
Race Reports
AAAs 3000m Senior World Trials and UK Championships
Position: 3rd
Time 8:06
Jonny made his debut on the indoor circuit in the Senior AAAs in Sheffield on the 13 February. Without specifically training for the event he managed a creditable 3rd place behind National and British Universities Cross-Country Champion Andy Vernon and 1500m Olympian Tom Lancashire, who reached the semi-finals of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Although Jonny's time was 8 seconds outside his personal best set last summer, the race was tactical and being a Championship race times are not too important.
Armagh International 5k Ireland
Position: 8th
Time: 14:10
Jonny finished off the winter season by finishing 8th in an International Field in the 5km race in Ireland. Mellor was at first disappointed with his time of 14:10, 3 seconds off his best on the road, but having looked at the results he realised his performance was better than first thought. In a field which contained runners from USA, Finland, Poland, France, Ireland and Great Britain, 8th turned out to be quite a good run - beating runners with superior track times over the 5000m.
Season Overall
Now that the season has finished Jonny can look back with mixed reflections. Jonny performed averagely over the cross-country, winning all of the local Liverpool and District League races, yet not carrying that form over to the big races such as The BUPA Great Winter Cross-country in Edinburgh and the BUCS Cross-country Championships.
Despite cross-country being his weakest surface he still managed to represent England in Spain in an international cross-country event which will given him valuable experience when it comes to future international events.
The highlight of the season was the Leeds Abbey Dash 10k in which Jonny won the race by 40 secs, in a time of 29:14 to take him 6th on the UK rankings for 10k in 2009. The main aims this season was to stay injury-free and build a base to carry over to the summer track races which has been achieved.
Jonny can now look forward to warm weather training in Portugal over Easter and a period of high altitude training in Fort Romeu with the UK Athletics squad. Hopefully this will set him up for another good summer especially ahead of Europeans and Commonwealths.
