Griggs hopes world’s best time leads to Euro glory

NICK Griggs set a new world’s fastest time for a Park Run on Saturday.

During his annual appearance at Belfast’s Victoria Park venue, where he always tests his legs ahead of the Irish National Cross Country Championships, the 19-year-old Newmills man broke Andrew Butchart’s Park Run world record by one second to set a new mark of 13 minutes and 44 seconds.

While he admits that the record, which is an unofficial accolade after Park Run removed statistics from their official website in February this year, was in the back of his mind ahead of Saturday, he’s delighted to have achieved the feat and he is surprised by the reaction his performance has generated.

“It was probably the aim a wee bit, subliminally in the back of my mind,” he admitted. “I knew they took the Park Run records away and we always do that one a week out for National cross as a hard time trial effort because it’s early, cold and it’s tough to get out and motivate yourself and it gives you a good indication and you can gauge how far you’re on from the year before.

“I knew the record was 13:45 but I wasn’t really thinking about it because they had taken away the word records. I thought if I did run it, it wouldn’t go big, it would just be a cool wee thing I could say I had achieved.

“I certainly didn’t expect it to go as big as it has done, it’s pretty mental!”

Having more than found his feet on Saturday, Nick feels he’s in good shape ahead of this coming weekend’s National Cross Country Championships where he hopes to seal the under-23 title to book his place on the plane to Turkey for the European’s where he wants to complete his set of medals.

“I kind of knew, coming off of altitude and having run a cross-country race in Belfast and ran quite well,  I had been feeling in good shape, but I hadn’t had that much time to train because I ended my [track] season quite late,” he said.

“I haven’t done as many weeks going into National’s as I usually would but I don’t seem to have been affected too much and I knew I was in good shape but you never really know how that looks until you go out and run so it was nice to put that all together and run a good, hard, solid effort more than even the time.

“So I’ll focus on the National’s now, hopefully qualify for the European’s and win the under-23s in Turkey.

“I have silver and bronze, so I need to complete the set. I feel I have ran well [at the European’s] but there’s a few demons there from the past, especially in 2022 in Italy when I was so close to winning but tripped, so I think as long as everything goes well hopefully I can qualify from National’s and get a few more weeks training under my belt, then it all looks good to go and win that title.”