Andrew Colley continued his red-hot racing streak with a win Thursday night at the 33rd Armagh International 5k in Northern Ireland. Andrew punctuated his win by storming to a new course record of 13:33. Teammate Ryan Ford, joining Andrew in the lead pack through the opening 3k of the race, ran a strong race to take 5th.
The race is one of the deepest 5k road races on the planet, and as a result tends to start with a fury as athletes jostle for position among the crowd. Andrew and Ryan, lined up in the front, were able to secure their position near the front of the race early. The race started quickly and after the opening kilometer slowed down slightly as the string of athletes began to group up slightly.
Andrew and Ryan remained near the front, never outside of the top 4 positions, regardless of who was in front. Andrew found himself leading small portions of the race over the opening half, but the race was largely dictated early by either a Swedish or Scottish athlete. The course is unique in that it runs around the town Mall, running just over 1 kilometer per lap.
With 2 laps remaining, Sebastian Larstad, a Swede on his way to a world age-group record, retook the lead and began to push the pace. Shortly after the large lead pack was reduced to Andrew and Larstad, with Ryan Ford sliding back to 3rd place, followed by a gap to the larger chase pack.
With 1 lap remaining, Larstad continued to press from the front with Andrew in his shadow. Every time Larstad looked over his shoulder to check, Andrew was right there. With 600m remaining, Andrew finally struck to the lead. His move was decisive and left Larstad immediately looking over his shoulder to make sure he had 2nd place secure. With 400m remaining Andrew had pulled clear and as he ran into the final 200m he was able to shift gears one more time to hold off a hard-charging Brit in Jack Kavanaugh.
Pumping his fists across the line, Andrew won by 2 seconds and dipped under the previous course record by 4 seconds with his 13:33 clocking. Teammate Ryan Ford finished strong in 5th place, running 13:48 to secure the team competition win for the US.
Andrew’s win is the 3rd by a ZAP athlete in the race’s long history. The first was David Nightingale back in 2009, also a course record performance of 13:54, and most recently 10 years ago when Joe Stilin kicked to the win on the wet streets of Armagh.
For Andrew & Ryan both, this race will also serve as a high end effort ahead of the US Half Marathon Championships in 2 1/2 weeks in Atlanta, where the top 3 finishers will be selected to represent the US at the World Road Running Championships, to be held for the first time in the United States in San Diego this September.
Full results of the Armagh Road Race can be found here and the full race replay can be viewed in the video below.