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Hannah Irwin unlocks good times on the track with GB call-up and Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games qualifying standard




Cambridge & Coleridge AC member Hannah Irwin (56902857)
Cambridge & Coleridge AC member Hannah Irwin (56902857)

You cannot imagine a more perfect race than the one executed by Hannah Irwin at the Night of the 10,000m PBs.

It has become a go-to event for many long distance track athletes on Parliament Hill, incorporating the British Championships and World Championship Trials, and the date of May 14 will probably be permanently etched on the memory of the Cambridge & Coleridge AC member.

Irwin was competing in the A race – there are eight 10,000ms in total on the evening – and she delivered everything imaginable.

Finishing seventh, the 23-year-old achieved a personal best, a Commonwealth Games qualifying time, a Northern Ireland 10,000m record and a place on the GB team for the European 10,000m Cup in Pacé, France.

“Obviously, going into it, I wanted to run the Commonwealth time,” says Irwin.

“I knew I was in the shape to do it, but you can never say I’m going to run it and go and do it, you need everything to come together.

“I really wanted to do it, but I also came to terms that if it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen. I just wasn’t going to put too much pressure on it.

“I think going into the race, I was actually pretty chilled and I felt confident. 10k is my strength so I can hold the pace for quite a long time and just keep going, so I knew I could do it. It was only at about 8k that I thought I’m actually going to do this, I just need to hold on and keep this going.”

It is vital to now crunch some numbers.

Irwin’s personal best for the 10,000m was 33min 11.08sec, and the Commonwealth Games qualifying time for Northern Ireland was 32min 37sec, so she knew an improvement of more than 34 seconds was required.

She did that, and more.

That Irwin clocked 3.25.34 was quite a breathtaking feat considering it took 46 seconds off her previous personal best.

It was a case of everything coming together on the night, and a sign of the progress from the British Championships 12 months ago when she felt in the physical shape to achieve the feat, but things did not quite fully click.

“My coach said to me going in ‘Hannah I think you could run 32.30’ and maybe physically I was progressing but mentally I wasn’t quite there last year, like I still didn’t believe those were times that I could run,” she explains, reflecting on last year.

“Maybe I didn’t have that confidence to really go there whereas I feel the past couple of months everything has come more together and my brain has taken a step forward as well.

“I’ve started to think I can do these things and I do have it in me to run those sort of times.

“Whereas before I would have thought to run 32.25 would have been insane and what the people I look up to run, but then I think more latterly I’ve just seen it as something I can run; it didn’t really seem scary, if that makes sense.”

Irwin, whose father hails from Northern Ireland, had already gone some way to making a mark on the bigger stage in January.

She finished second in the World Athletics Northern Ireland International to Kenyan world champion Helen Obiri in the 8km cross country event, taking the Home Nations title after a sprint finish with Scottish runner Mhairi MacLennan.

It was a perfect course of three laps, three quarters of which were uphill. “I love hills. If I could just have a permanently uphill cross country I would do that,” says Irwin.

You can tell that it was something of a breakthrough moment in such a high calibre field.

Cambridge & Coleridge AC member Hannah Irwin (56902859)
Cambridge & Coleridge AC member Hannah Irwin (56902859)

“I hadn’t really shown what I thought I knew I could do,” she explains.

“I was trying to go for the Euro cross-country in December and I didn’t make that so then I ran Telford 10K and that went well as well.

“I did a bit of indoors and I went into the Northern Irish cross-country excited to run cross country.

“I felt really confident as I knew I would be fine on the hills and would just sit and wait until other people started to hurt as well.

“It was just nice to have that race to think I can actually beat all the other people that maybe I didn’t think I could. It just showed to me that you don’t know what other people can and can’t do, you’ve just got to focus on yourself in a race and that’s all you can do.”

It steps up again this weekend with a first GB vest.

Heading to the Highgate Harriers-run Night of the 10,000m PBs, Irwin was not aware it was even a possibility until an associate who was helping select the team informed her of the situation.

“He said ‘have it in the back of your mind that if you run 32.45 there is potentially a GB vest for you’.”

But she kept her focus on the main target, which was the Commonwealth Game standard.

“I didn’t think of it, it just went in one ear and out the other,” says Irwin. “Afterwards, I was like ‘I did actually run that so it will be my first GB vest’.

“There have been times where I have come quite close to getting a GB vest but things just didn’t quite tie together.

“I had been trying to get one for so long that eventually I just thought it would happen when it happens and I won’t try to force it.

“Then, when I didn’t have it on my mind, that was when it actually happened.”

She adds: “I feel like a GB vest represents that you are able to reach a certain standard. I think once you’ve had that it does show to other people that ‘she’s not just doing this for fun, she is actually going somewhere’.”

Irwin is determined to take it all in her stride this weekend.

She is part of a six-strong GB women’s team for the event.

“I’m just going to race it and see what comes out of it that way, just soak up the atmosphere,” says Irwin.

“I don’t know in terms of the event where I would stand but I’ve spoken to a couple of people that have done it before and they’ve said don’t put limits on what you think you can do, just go all out for it.

“I’m just going to race it and time will be irrelevant, I will just see how high I can place.”



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