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BIG PERSONAL BEST FOR NEIL
IN DUBLIN
After a good block of training
and serious technique work. Neil Bates showed that
hard work pays when he beat his 10km personal best
time by over a minute in Dublin on Saturday.
Neil, who gains financial
suppurt from the Isle of Man Sports Council, started
at a quick but comfortable pace, Neil found himself
in the leading group racing some truely class athletes,
including Irish olympian and Athens hopeful Robert
Hefferman. They all worked together and managed
to go through 5km at 23 mins. This pace was only
some 30seconds slower than Neil’s 5km PB, but he
felt comfortable and able to carry on at much the
same pace.
The group started to break
with Rob pushing on. Neil decided to stick at the
pace he was at as he knew he was safe and already
on for a good time. Neil finally started to come
back to Rob with 3km to go, but was unable to reduce
the distance completely.
Neil finished 2nd in the
10km race with a time of 46mins 14 seconds beating
his previous best of 47mins 29. On returning to
the Island Neil was very pleased. "My previous
best was set in January and Ive been working so
hard all year round, its about time that it was
revised. To make such a massive improvement at this
time of year is just amazing, but I just have to
make sure I dont make the mistakes I did last year
and find that I have nothing left by the time summer
comes" Neil said " But I am so pleased
that now it seems the work has paid off.
"I wanted to set a
quick pace at first and to see how i felt at half
way. At 5km I knew i could keep it going till the
end. I had abit of a problem with my drink at 7km
which slowed me for a while, but with 2km to go
I knew I only had to suffer for 9 minutes so I pushed
myself and picked up almost all the time I’d lost."
After the race, Neil’s
weekend was only starting as afterward he was able
to link up with Ireland’s World Silver medallist,
Gillian O’Sullivan, and her coach Michael Lane.
"Micheal has always been a massive source
of knowledge and always more than happy to pass
on any tips to me, so I spent most of Saturday and
Sunday working on technique and also training and
plans for the future" Neil explained "I
also had alot of time to talk to Gillian about her
life and training and learnt so much about what
it takes to get to where she is…. It was amazing,
but well worth it, the Irish certainly do have their
heads screwed."
As well as Michael and
Gillian, Neil says that his own Coach Allan is a
pricelss resource in his walking career and general
life which says he is truely grateful for and knows
he could not live without.
NEIL
BATES (ML)
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