Peter Giles set a new British record for the V80 3000m at the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting on 30th August, running 13:29.02 to break his own previous record of 13:30.78. The mark is pending ratification, as is standard for record claims, but the improvement on his own best puts Giles at the top of the British age-group rankings for the event once again.
Photo — The 3000m results board at the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, confirming Peter Giles' record-breaking time.
Giles, who competes for Hercules Wimbledon, finished seventh in the meeting's 3000m, well down the field on raw position behind winner Larry Gavin's 9:24.03, but the result on the clock was never really about where he placed. Age-graded records are judged against the standard expected for an athlete's specific age category, and a sub-13:30 3000m from an athlete in the V80 bracket is an exceptional performance by any measure, regardless of the overall field it was run in.
Photo — Peter Giles celebrates his new V80 3000m British record with the PB board at the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting.
This is not new territory for Giles. He has built a reputation as one of the most prolific record breakers in British masters athletics, holding multiple age-group club records at Hercules Wimbledon across events as varied as the 3000m steeplechase, javelin, discus, shot put and relays, accumulated across the V65 and V70 categories before his move up to V80 level. Earlier this year, at Hercules Wimbledon's own Dave Clarke Mile Extravaganza in July, Giles set a new M80 British record despite running with a hamstring twinge that nearly forced him to withdraw from the race altogether. Running through that kind of setback to break a national record is the sort of thing that has become something of a pattern for him.
Photo — Peter Giles crosses the line at the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, breaking his own V80 3000m British record.
The V80 3000m record now sits at 13:29.02 pending official confirmation, an improvement of over a second and a half on the mark Giles himself had held previously. Breaking a record you already own is, in some ways, a different kind of pressure to setting one for the first time: there is no unknown territory to chase, only the question of whether a body well into its ninth decade of competition can find another gear on the day it matters. At the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, in a 3000m field that also included senior and masters athletes from a spread of clubs, Giles found that gear again.
Photo — Peter Giles races the 3000m at the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, setting a new V80 British record of 13:29.02.
The Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting itself is built around exactly this kind of masters performance. Bob Lewis was a European Masters Games Champion over 400m, and the meeting held in his memory each August has always made a point of giving masters athletes a genuine competitive programme rather than treating age-graded racing as an afterthought to the junior and senior events. A British record broken at the meeting, by an athlete competing in the oldest age category on the card, is precisely the kind of result the event was designed to produce space for.
Photo — Peter Giles holds the PB board beside the 3000m results at the Bob Lewis Memorial Meeting, having set a new V80 British record.
For Hercules Wimbledon, Giles' record continues a run of standout masters performances from the club in 2026, adding to a list of age-group records and championship results that has kept the club prominent in British masters athletics through the year. Club training partners including Lisa Thomas, another multiple British Masters medallist based at Hercules Wimbledon, have contributed to a strong year for the club's veteran squad, and Giles' 3000m record sits alongside that wider pattern of success. For Giles himself, the 3000m at Kingston adds one more entry to a record book he has already rewritten several times over, and there is little reason to think this will be the last.
Congratulations to Peter on a genuinely outstanding run.
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