We were back on the tarmac, although some of it was muddy, at the weekend with some end of year fast action as people looked to clock a pre-Christmas PB. There was also the first indoor action of the season.
We started with a midweek win for Rob Meredith in the Flood light Festive 5k at Stourport on Wednesday, despite recovering from illness he claimed victory by over 2 minutes in 16.36.
There were some fast feet at the Telford 10k where muddy conditions could not stop some unbelievably fast times with the first 50 runners all ducking under the 30 minute mark. Harry Dyall was first back for the club in 283rd in 33.11, Louie Lambeth 298th in 33.26, Luke Maskew definitely raced in wave 1 but appears on the results as a DNF, that’s certainly not the case as he clocked 34.03 on his own watch. Rob Meredith was out for the second time in a few days finishing in 446th in 35.05, Derrick Milligan was 574th in 37.00, Greg Asbury 624th in 37.38, Tony Cheema 638th in 38.00, Tom Pryor recorded a huge PB with 37.58 for 644th place, Lorna Hulme was 654th in 38.15, Rich Amor-Wilkes 659th in 38.28, Dave Norman finished in 822nd in 41.40 and Seb McEwan clocked 48.21 to take 1011th.
There was more festive fun in the Christmas Pudding Run at Sneyd with the option of a one lap, 5 mile race, or a double lapper for the 10 mile option. Over 5 miles Alex Kelly placed 10th with 32.32, Mark Judge was 20th and 1st M45 in 35.55 with Stu Whitehouse breathing down his neck in 21st place in 36.00 taking 2nd M45. And over 10 miles there was a 2nd place finish for Dan Turner in 55.44, Sabrina Thomas was 41st, 5th lady and 2nd F35 in 1.09.36 and Joe Flatley was 43rd in 1.09.47
Our pair of marathon maniacs were in Spain last weekend for the Generali Malaga Marathon. Dave Joynson completed the distance in an ultra-consistent 3.13.15 to place 596th and Gillian Mitchell was 3452nd in 5.12.57.
And on the track in the Northern Athletics Indoor Open in Sheffield there was a 3rd place finish on his indoor debut for Kyle Astley-Weah over 60m clocking 7.54, La’Taunya Samuels was 2nd in her heat in a PB of 7.98 seconds breaking 8 seconds for the first time. Freya Hooper placed 7th in her heat in 8.74 seconds on her indoor debut. Psalm Roberts-Nash was 2nd in his heat in 1.19.07 but only 0.02 shy of the win, his fastest indoor 600m for 4 years, Connor Blincoe was 2nd in a personal best of 1.33.17, his fastest since 2021. And over 300m Kyle placed 4th in his heat in 39.19 seconds, La’Taunya placed 1st in her heat with a PB of 42.35 seconds and Freya 4th in her heat in 47.41. Aisha Abdulla competed in the U15B girls long jump placing 8thin her pool with 4.09 and 8th of 26 competitors overall, Aisha was then 1st in the all age groups shot put competition with a throw of 10.92.
Finally, an apology. I said last week there was every chance of missing someone who raced in the English Schools Cross Country Cup as I was faced with a list of names and schools and pages of results to go through. I was absolutely right, I did miss someone, Will Hughes was 45th in 16.04 in the Intermediate Boys race. A wait of a week for the recognition hopefully won’t take the shine of the achievement.
Dave Norman
