Lauren Ryan and Jack Rayner have reset the Australian Records over 10,000m at the Sound Running ‘The Ten’ meet in California.
Ryan, 26, slashed over a minute-and-a-half from her personal best to also better the tough Olympic qualifying standard of 30 minutes, 40 seconds. Her performance of 30:35.66 better Benita Willis’s previous mark, set in finishing 8th at the 2003 World Championships, by two seconds.
“She’s one of Australia’s greatest runners that we’ve ever had,” Ryan, who finished third, told FloTrack after the meet.
“It be a part of that in the history books is just incredible. I still feel like such a young runner that I still look up to so many great Aussie athletes and it’s just so exciting to be part of that.”
Ryan negatively split the race, running the two halves in approximately 15:24 and 15:11, with her final 2km covered in 6:02.
Ryan’s performances comes on the back of her Zatopek:10 victory in December and strong indoor racing for the US-based athlete over the past months, including personal bests over 3000m (8:42.31) and 5000m (14:57.67). She will now return to Australia to prepare for next month’s Australian Championships in Adelaide, where she will contest the 5000m.
In the men’s race Jack Rayner lowered his own national mark set at the same meet two years ago, running 27:07.57 for 13th place. Although an improvement of 5 seconds, the performance was short of the Olympic qualifying standard of 27:00, which was achieved by the top 8 athletes in the race.
