Six SAC runners skipped Jim's trail run on Sunday 30th July to contest the East Peckham 10k, with excellent age category results. The course was flat, the weather was favourable - if a bit windy, and the results came in 5-year categories up to W70/M80. Jamie Philip was 2nd M45, Keith Dowson 2nd M60, Bridgit Weekes 2nd W65, Lucy Wilkes 2nd W40, Simon Hallpike 1st M70 and Lionel Stielow 6th M70.
The SAC times were:
The full results are here.
As in the June race, Keith Dowson won the July handicap race ahead of David Hale.
This time Keith was two minutes clear and the only runner to beat his handicap over five miles in windy conditions.
Lucy Wilkes was the fastest woman and David the fastest overall.
Lucy continues to lead the series by one point after coming fourth in the race. Sam Znetyniak and Simon Hallpike stay in second and third.
The next, eighth, race is over the seven mile course and starts from the track at 08:30 on Sunday 6th August.
The details are here.
The results of our over-35s athletics meeting at Tonbridge on 7th July have just gone onto the Power of 10 website (at full results), writes Gary Walsh. There were 6 team members: Rebecca Pickard, Gary Walsh, Graham Dwyer, Jon Maxim, Keith Dowson and Paul Fanti. Everyone achieved either a race win, a PB or a Club Best performance, details below!
Once again, Rebecca was the sole representative on the women’s team, her events being 400m and 3000m. She finished 1st in the W35A 400m in 70.1 seconds, a new PB and an improvement on her own W45 Club Best performance from earlier in the season. She also finished 1st in the W35A 3000m (her first ever race at the distance!), knocking more than 50 seconds off the previous W45 Club Best!
In the men's 400m Gary finished 5th in the M35A race in a new PB of 74.9 seconds, Jon finished 4th in the M35B race in a PB of 69.4 seconds, and Graham put in an outstanding performance in the M50 race to finish 1st in 65.8 seconds! The sprints took their toll, with Gary aggravating a foot injury within the first few strides and Graham tweaking a hamstring after 50m - Graham valiantly continued in the remaining events but Gary's night was over.
In the men's 3000m, Keith put in a highly impressive performance to finish 1st in the M60 race in 11:53.7!
In the field events, Jon finished 4th in the M35 Hammer with a throw of 9.31m, Graham (with a visibly tweaked hamstring) finished 5th in the M50 Triple Jump with 8.13m, and Keith finished a strong 3rd in the M50 Hammer with a new M60 Club Best throw of 16.84m, extending his PB by nearly 2m!
The meeting ended with the 4x400m relay, and once again we were able to field a team - 3 out of 3 relays so far this season! The team (Graham, Jon, Keith and Paul) finished in 5th place in 4:46.3 which beat the existing M45 Club Best by 1.5 seconds! Special thanks to Graham for bravely running with his injured hamstring and to Keith for stepping in to replace the broken Gary!
With the significant points scored, and Swanley/Eynesford once again not fielding any athletes on the night, the men's team further strengthened our 5th place in Division 2. In the women's competition, Rebecca has single-handedly put us up to 5th place in Division 2 ahead of Swanley/Eynesford!
The final meeting of the season will be at Dartford on Friday 28th July with the following events:
(6:45) 800m W, long jump M, high jump W, shot put M, discus W;
(7.25) 800m M;
(8.00) long jump W, discus M;
(8.05) 100m W;
(8.25) 100m M;
(8.45) 4x200m relay W;
(9:05) 4x200m relay M.
Geoffrey will issue a call for athletes nearer the time - it'd be great if we could get a good turnout and field relay teams yet again! (And they're all short races so you could do them all and still barely run more than a kilometre - you'll run further in the warm-up :-)
The warm, sunny evening of Friday 23 June made for a good outing for over-35 athletics at the Norman Park track, Bromley, writes Geoffrey Kitchener. We had a team of five – David Simpson, Gary Walsh, Graham Dwyer, Rebecca Pickard and me – and held fifth positions on the day in Division 2, both men and women. (Rebecca single-handedly held off the Swanley/Eynsford women’s team to achieve this.) Unusually, the meeting organisation was a bit patchy, with the starter not having brought along a pistol (so the track results will not go on the power of ten website, although John Denyer says that club bests can count), with equipment incompatibility preventing announcements, and there being fewer officials than expected. As a result, I found myself volunteering to be lead official at the high jump, having never filled in a results sheet before (these are complicated, but competitors kindly helped me), and David stepped in to help raise the bar (little did he expect that this would go up to 2 metres, a challenge for all concerned!).
Track events began with 200m, Rebecca winning third place in the second fastest time achieved by an SAC W45 athlete. In the men’s 200m we were represented by Gary, Duncan and Graham, the latter taking third M50 place in a PB of 29.6 seconds. At 1500m Rebecca, having already shattered the club best performance earlier this season, took over ten seconds more off, coming second in 5:26.7. At present, this is likely to represent 17th or 18th place in the national rankings (although the absence of power of ten results will prevent it from figuring). Graham at this distance again took third M50 place in a PB and Duncan was third in the M60s. The last track event was the 2k walk, in which I was our only representative, coming second (to my surprise) in the M35 race, in a time undercutting the club’s M70 best performance by 21 seconds.
The field events in which we entered were javelin, shot and high jump. Rebecca improved her javelin PB for a third place; Gary also improved his PB; and David Simpson’s fourth M60 place would rank in the top three nationally for M80s, but for his having to use the heavier M60 javelin. Our only shot putter was Duncan and our only high jumper was Graham, who claimed second M50 place with 1.36m, a PB and club M50 best performance.
So, although we were few in numbers, it was a satisfying evening, with personal and club bests. Our next outing will be at Tonbridge track, on Friday 7 July, when there will be 400m, 3000m, 4 x 400m relay, triple jump, hammer throw, high jump (women) and pole vault (men). Offers to join in will be welcome.