The results of our over-35s athletics meeting at Tonbridge on 2nd June have just gone onto the Power of 10 website (at full results), writes Gary Walsh. There were 6 team members (a 2023 record!): Rebecca Pickard, Duncan Cochrane, Gary Walsh, Graham Dwyer, Keith Dowson and Sham Pickard. I think it's fair to say that even the fittest of us were nursing a few niggles, but Sham and Keith deserve special thanks for competing in spite of injury to make sure we could be represented in as many events as possible.
Once again, Rebecca was the sole representative on the women’s team, her events being 100m, 800m and javelin. She finished 4th in the W35A 100m in 16.0 seconds (good enough for 3rd place in the W45 club bests), 4th again in the W35 javelin (2nd place in the W45 club bests), and her stand-out performance of the night was finishing 2nd in the W35A 800m. Her 800m performance was our best of the evening - maintaining her relentless pace she closed down a huge gap to the leading runner over the last 250m to finish only 0.5 seconds behind, her time of 2:39.2 beating the previous W45 club best by over 30 seconds! This also puts her an amazing 13th in the W45 UK rankings!
In the men's 100m: Gary finished 5th in the M35A race in a PB of 15.9 seconds (3rd in the M55 club bests), Duncan finished 5th in the M35B race in 18.1 seconds (only 0.2 seconds away from 3rd place in the M65 club bests), and Graham put in an outstanding performance in the M50 race to finish 2nd in a PB of 14.4 seconds only 0.1 seconds behind the winner (and good enough for 3rd place in the M50 club bests).
In the men's 800m, Gary finished 5th in the M35A race in a PB of 2:53.9, Keith finished 5th in the M35B race in 2:58.8, Graham finished 4th in the M50 race in 2:35.2, and Duncan finished an excellent 3rd in the M60 race in 3:05.0.
In the men's high jump, Graham once again piled on the points in the M50 event by finished 2nd with a height of 1.25m (joint 3rd in the M50 club bests), as did Keith in the M60 event by finishing joint 3rd with a height of 1.05m (3rd in the M60 club bests).
In the men's javelin, Gary finished 5th in the M35 event (his 1st ever javelin throw, adopting the "get a safe point" technique of throwing the javelin down into the ground rather than up into the air!), and Duncan (adopting a more conventional technique) finished 5th in the M50 event.
The meeting ended with the 4x100m relay, and for once we actually had more than enough men to field a team! In a demonstration of how fleeting records can be, the team (Gary, Sham, Duncan and Graham) finished in 5th place in 68.1 seconds, beating the previous M50 club best (that had stood for a mere 7 days) by 0.6 seconds!
With the significant points scored, and Swanley/Eynesford not fielding any athletes on the night, the men's team strengthened our 5th place in Division 2. In the women's competition, Rebecca has (over 2 meetings) single-handedly put us within reach of Swanley/Eynesford - it's all to play for!
The next meeting will be at Norman Park, Bromley on Friday 23rd June with the following events:
(6:45) 200m W, pole vault W, high jump M, shot put M, javelin W;
(7.15) 200m M;
(7.45) 1500m W;
(8.00) shot put W, javelin M;
(8.15) 1500m M;
(8.45) 2000m walk W;
(9:05) 2000m walk M.
