PHNOM PENH ATHLETICS CLUB

Excellent turnout for the regular PPAC 5km road race. Humid conditions after an overnight downpour did nothing to stop a high level contest at the front of the race between Andarge and first-time 5k road racer Nicolas. Close right until the final lap Andarge edged ahead finishing with a 5k PB of 17:03 and a big PPAC points record of 884.4, crossing the line 20s ahead of Nicolas who scored an impressive 832.3 points first time out. Two female athletes finished in the top six, both scoring over 500 points, pointing to a really strong mixed showing. Further down the field Leonardo put in the second most consistent performance and fought back excellently with a 9.7s final lap negative split to recover two places overall. There were three 5k PBs for athletes with previously recorded times and two points PBs. In a 'first timer!' for Phnom Penh Athletics Club we were joined by our first international virtual participant, Alexander, who ran 22:22 around the Bukit Jalil National Stadium...

We had two closely matched heats in our second urban 400m race of the year after the CNTR 400m race in early February. In the first heat Hugo ducked under 60s to win by just 0.63s to record a new PB of 59.49s and set a huge PPAC points PB, beating his previous best by over 110 and join the 600+ club for a score of 660.4 points. A small difference of just over half a second still worked out to a 27 point gap between 1st and 2nd. The second heat was even closer, with Leonardo leading by 0.03s at the half-way mark but Jack overturning the deficit at the finish line to edge to the heat win and fourth place overall by just 0.31s. Leonardo and Yin Ling both set new 400m PBs and Leonardo beat his Points record. Performances were very consistent overall, with an average positive 200m split of just +3.8%, but well under 1% for the top two finishers (possibly indicating a conservative starting pace or strong finishing).         For the second event of the morning, with only 5...