Nick sets Irish record ahead of new cross-country season

NICK Griggs warmed up for the new cross-country season, which gets underway on Saturday at the Bobby Rea International where he will race for Northern Ireland, by setting a new Irish Parkrun record.

The Newmills man ran a time of 14.05 minutes at Belfast Victoria Park, bettering his previous Parkrun  best of 14.10, but some way off his track 5,000 metres PB of around 13.30 minutes. And while he would have liked to have gone sub-14 minutes on the day, the conditions weren’t really ideal and the time was never the ultimate goal.

“It was less about the time and more about getting a solid, hard run in,” he explained. “It’s a Parkrun, so it’s never going to be ridiculously fast – it’s nine in the morning, it’s freezing cold, so it’s never going to be good!

“But I ran 14.15 last year and then 14.10, so I knew I could run something faster than that but last year I had someone with me, I had Ben Branagh, who helped push it on, which made it a bit easier. But this year it was just me, with no bike and no people so I had to push it the best I could and it was good enough.

“I got that nice, hard run I was looking for and I felt that pain again that I hadn’t felt in a couple of months because I hadn’t been racing. It was a solid enough day.”

Having banked that hard training run, Nick turned his attentions to the cross-country season, with the Bobby Rea International first on the agenda before the Irish National Championships in Kilkenny, followed by the European Championships in Belgium where he is hoping to atone for last year’s error on the home straight that saw him stumble and lose the gold medal with only a few metres to go.

First, though, he’s looking forward to blowing off a few more cobwebs this coming Saturday in Comber.

“It’s a five mile cross-country, so when you think the National’s and the European’s are only going to be 5K, it’s basically an extra two miles so doing that and then going back down to 5K makes it seem not so bad and it’s quite a hard course, quite hilly and muddy as well,” he explained. “So it will be a good strength builder and it will be nice to pull on the Northern Ireland vest again.”

Once that race is completed all of Nick’s attentions will switch to retaining the Irish under-20 crown so he can travel to Belgium in a few weeks when he will try to go one better than his silver medal result in Italy a year earlier. However, he knows that won’t be easy with a certain Dutchman also likely to be in the field.

“Hopefully I can have a nice farewell to the under-20 ranks at the European’s, but first I have to qualify,” he added.

“Maybe there will be a bit of redemption after last year, but again it’s going to be really tough considering the quality of the field. It seems the quality is always getting better and better, so we’ll focus on qualifying first and then I’ll start thinking of what I’m going to do at the European’s.

“[Niels] Laros is in it, so he’s a level above. To try and beat him will be very, very tough, but anything can happen on the day. I’ll give it a go!”