The Valencia 10K made compelling viewing on Sunday, 11th January 2026. Two European records and 18 national records were broken as 14,125 runners finished the 18th edition of the 10K Valencia Ibercaja by Kiprun in the self-proclaimed Spanish 'City of Running'.

A further 1,395 athletes ran the supporting Valencia Ibercaja 5K, which started at 8:15am in the Paseo de la Alameda, the fourth edition of the 5K race and the largest to date. The overall winners were Clement Paillon (France, 14:44) and Sophie Moroney (Ireland, 17:43).

The Valencia 10K starts in waves with the elite men and women running together. In last year's race, Rory Leonard, of Morpeth Harriers, smashed the British 10K road record previously held jointly by Sir Mo Farah and Emile Cairess. Leonard recorded 27:38 in 2025 – as reported here in runABC.

This year, all British eyes were on the women's race, where W35 Eilish McColgan (Dundee Hawkhill Harriers) was hoping to regain the European record she had lost to Belgium's Jana van Lent, who ran 30:10 in Nice the previous weekend.

McColgan delivered with 30:08 to reclaim her record – naturally also a Scottish and UK best – finishing eighth in a world-class field, led by Brenda Jepchirchir (Kenya, 29:25) – the equal fourth fastest ever women's 10K time.

After the race, McColgan said: "I'm very happy, it was my first time in Valencia, and I can only say amazing things about the race. I think it's the first time I've ever run a race where I wasn't alone for more than two meters. There were people cheering from start to finish, and that really helped me in the last two kilometers when I was tired."

Among a host of stellar British performances were big PBs for Alex Bell (Pudsey & Bramley, 30:57), Izzy Fry (Newbury AC, 31:01), and a Welsh record for Clara Evans-Graham (Pontypridd Roadents, 31:13).

The men's race saw a brilliant front-running effort from Andreas Almgren (Sweden, 26:45) to take eight seconds off his own European record set in this race last year. After the pacemaker dropped out around halfway, Almgren withstood several challenges from Ethiopia's Khairi Bejiga (26:51) to secure his second successive Valencia victory.

Joe Wigfield (Wirral AC, 27:38) exactly equalled the British men's 10K record to share this accolade with Rory Leonard. A host of fast times followed, including from Alfie Manthorpe (Hallamshire Harriers, 27:41), Scott Beattie (Morpeth Harriers, 27:42), and a new Scottish record for Andy Butchart (Central AC, 27:43).

Full details and results are at the 10K Valencia Ibercaja by Kiprun website here.

Photo courtesy Valencia 10K press release