Perth’s Ben Greenwood has powered into Scotland’s all-time indoor 800m top ten.
Greenwood produced a fantastic personal best run at the weekend’s Manchester World Indoor Tour event.
Held at the Manchester Regional Arena, the 23-year-old ensured he started the year on the front foot by clocking 1:48.05 to win his race.
The Perth Strathtay Harrier was, understandably, delighted to move into ninth in the all-time Scottish list.
“It’s quite a busy top 10 and everyone in there has run really quick times,” Greenwood explained to the PA.
“It’s good to be in the mix and hopefully, as the races go on, I can move up a few more spaces on the list.”
Greenwood, on the race itself, continued: “You need to take advantage of every opportunity you’ve got.
“I wanted to attack the race early to make sure I’d put myself in a good position to run a decent time.
“Having seen the result from the first 800m race of the day, I knew there was a chance to get the top prize. I attacked it hard.
“We only had the pacer for 300m so it was quite difficult on that third lap to maintain the pace.
“But I’ve done so many sessions on my own through the winter and I’m used to having to do the work. I don’t get stressed out from being in that position.
“It was actually the first time I’d run indoors at 800m since 2017. I’d have been a bit annoyed if I didn’t get a PB!”
The strong early-year run was helped by a recent training camp in South Africa.
“I managed to get out for 18 days,” Greenwood told the PA. “The sessions were really good and the weather was fantastic.
“Everything went exactly as we had hoped it would. I was mainly in with Tom Randolph who is based out of St Mary’s University in London.
“There was a decent group out there and we were all moving at similar paces. It was nice to have that company.
“We were at 1300m which is enough to get the altitude benefit but you can still run the same pace as sea level. It was about 28 degrees too so there was the added challenge of the heat.”
With Greenwood’s season warming up nicely, he is hoping to make the most of the momentum and build on his Manchester success story.
He is currently trying to finalise plans as to where and when he will be racing in the coming weeks.
“At the moment everything is up in the air,” the former Perth Academy student noted. “I’m trying to get into different races.
“There is the potential of getting into another silver meet in the Czech Republic and then, from there, trying to find something.
“I’m preparing as if I’m going to race, it’s just where. That is the nature of the game unfortunately.
“If not, I’ll get a really good block of training in and race in the British Championships at the end of February.”
