Lilly Coward leads the women’s rankings at the end of the second day of virtual mile action

Day two of the British Milers’ Club Bannister Virtual Miles proved to be a revelation as athletes took advantage of the decent conditions to record some fast solo mile times.

Almost £1000 has also now been raised for the Turn2Us coronavirus appeal.

Lilly Coward (pictured above), who has a 4:20 1500m PB, flew around the Surrey lanes to return the fastest women’s time by over 10 seconds (4:38) ahead of Maisie Grice, who recorded a swift 4:49 on Monday.

Gemma Kersey (pictured below) moved into second with an impressive 4:55 clocking.

Under-20 Samantha Mason of Salford was not far adrift, stopping her Garmin at 5:00.

That time was equalled by Naomi Lang from Aberdeen.

Under-17 Amelia Bratt, also of Salford, produced a strong 5:23 effort.

Olympic marathoner Aly Dixon also enjoyed a solo run, showing good speed of 5:13 was still present in those distance legs to move into the women’s top six.

The men’s event became even more exciting with a three-way tie at the top of the leaderboard, with 1:48 800m man Ben Greenwood and 1:51 half-miler Seb Anthony joining James Heneghan in completing the mile in 4:07.

Collin Leibold (Washington, USA) ran 4:11, with Thomas Frith (4:11) and James McCrae (4:15) next fastest.

Roman Hodgson stormed to a 4:25 clocking for the quickest under-15 time by some distance.

Simon Rayner (V55), a 4:03 miler at his best and now living in Canada, showed he still ‘has it’ with a 4:54 return set on day one.

The scene is set for Wednesday when organisers expect the majority of athletes will run their time trial, with it being the 66th anniversary of Sir Roger Bannister’s historic sub-four-minute mile.

Donations can be made to Turn2Us at justgiving.com/fundraising/british-milers.

Read more about the virtual event here.

Results can be found here.

Report by event co-organisers Steve Green and Matt Long and Matt de Freitas, event support.