This may have been corrected by the time you read this, but the "Top age grades this week" page on the global parkrun website is currently showing this amazing result:
This week's top age graded performances at each event
Event  | Athlete | Time | Age Group | Age Grade | Club | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grovelands | Alex MCINTOSH | 13:03 | SM30-34 | 99.36 % | Garden City Runners |
I'm sure you'll agree that 99.36% age grades aren't too easy to come by!
Take a look for yourself at the "Top age grades this week" page.
A very impressive time, smashing Andy Baddeley's short-held (since early August) parkrun record by around 30 seconds.
And....he won the event at Grovelands parkrun by a significant 6 and a half minutes!
http://www.parkrun.org.uk/grovelands/results/weeklyresults?runSeqNumber=107
Grovelands parkrun, Enfield # 107 - 22/09/2012
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I am somewhat doubtful that this is a fair result and doubt that the record will stand for long. Delving a little deeper suggests its an all-time 5K PB for Alex McIntosh, beating his (very impressive) 16:44 achieved in the summer of 2004 by a massive 3 minutes and 41 seconds. The evidence doesn't look too good!
Take a look here at Alex's parkrun record:
http://www.parkrun.org.uk/athleteresultshistory?athleteNumber=78080
This makes it a parkrun and course PB for Alex by over 4 and a half minutes. Again, the evidence doesn't look to promising.
Even his "Power of 10" page suggests that there is no chance of him being capable of a time like this:
http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=18349
I hope I'm wrong as we may have a new 5000m specialist ready to represent the UK when the time comes, but somehow I doubt it.#
Alex, if you ever read this, I really hope you are our great new hope and that we will see you pushing Mo Farah on to even greater heights in the coming years, but a quick reality check suggest that this is unlikely to be the case.
There is no doubt that Alex's time show he is a very good runner, but unfortunately it doesn't look like he is a world beater (yet!). It amused me for 20 minutes though, if nothing else.
Grovelands parkrun may have a spot of form here. This from my first results round-up on the London Heathside site:
ReplyDelete"According to at least one tear-stained missive sent to Heathside HQ, there appears to have been some sort of problem with the timer at Grovelands parkrun this week with everyone being awarded finishing times around 33 seconds quicker than what they had on their stopwatches. As yet, there's no sign of the results being altered on the parkrun website, so there's an asterisk next to them below and we'll be happy to correct them if the truth ever comes to light. In the meantime, our four hardy Grovelanders can draw comfort from the fact that at least it didn't happen the weekend before the club handicap, otherwise they'd have been stuffed."
[Disclaimer: the one time I was on timer duty at Finsbury Park, I cocked it up.]