It was another busy week for athletes from Wolverhampton & Bilston AC across all possible surfaces with track, road and fell action on the cards.
The week started with the Night of Endurance PBs at Nuneaton where a strong squad travelled looking for some decent competition and, in most cases, they were not disappointed. There were various heats on the night with runners seeded based on previous times. Over 1500 Sara Jones ran in heat 5 and came 5th in 5.0.02, with Madison Farley coming 6th in 5.04.00. In heat 7 Greg Asbury was 3rd in 4.46.84, Sam Ball was 4th in 4.48.77 and Ava Kind was 10th in 5.18.29. In heat 8 Sam Thursfield placed 2nd in 4.45.04. In heat 11 Oscar Davis was 9th in 4.37.53 and in heat 13 Louie Lambeth was 10th in 4.13.47. Over 3000 Scarlett Williams finished in 10.43.32 in heat 1 and Jack Bonser ran a strong solo race, leading by some distance throughout, to record a time of 8.52.76 for the win.
There was more track action at the weekend in Solihull as the club competed in their final fixture on the Midland Track & Field League Division 3 with both men’s’ and women’s’ teams placing 6th overall, 6th in the match and 6th of the 7 teams competing in the overall league table for the season. Naim Awal was 6th in the 100m A race in 11.9 and Michael Deans was 3rd in the B race in 12.20. Over 200m Naim clocked 25.2 for 6th in the A race and Michael 24.60 in the B race. Over 400m Tom Pryor placed 3rd with a time of 54.5 in the A race and then recorded a time of 2.01.7 finishing 1st over 800m again in the A race. Noah Sandland clocked 4.37.7 for 4th place in the 1500A and Danny Malone was 3rd in 4.43.00 in the B race. Richard Wright was 5th in 10.25.9 over 3000m. Mark Carnaghan was 1st in the 400m hurdles in a time of 67.2, Mark then recorded a leap of 4.00 to place 6th in the long jump A with Nacardo Lewis recording no mark in the B competition.
In the throws Chris Sandland was 4th with a throw of 9.65 in the A shot with Mark Carnaghan placing 4th with 8.40 in the B event, Mark was 5th in the A javelin with 18.38 and Naim was 6th with 9.03 in the B competition. Chris also recorded 4th in the hammer with a throw of 27.01 and 5th in the discuss with a throw of 22.00 beating his son, Noah, who competed in the B event coming 5th with 14.03.
In the ladies competition Elizabeth Pennington placed 3rd with a time of 2.19.7 in the 800m A race and Audrey Wilson was 4th with 2.57.50 in the B race. Audrey was also 5th with 6.16.0 over 1500m in the A race where Louise Webster placed 3rd with 6.19.60 in the B race. Ella Semple claimed an impressive victory in the sweltering conditions in the 3000m clocking 10.18.3.
In the throws Louise was 3rd with 9.04 in the shot, 5th in the javelin with a distance of 22.76, 1st in the hammer with 37.68 and 6th in the discuss with a throw of 16.98. A fine effort after Walsall parkrun in the morning. Well done to all the athletes, volunteers, supporters and officials from the club who braved the elements during a blisteringly hot afternoon of competition.
Danny Malone was back in Solihull the following morning where a small group took part in the gruelling Solihull Half Marathon tackling an undulating course in 32 degree heat. Despite this Danny placed 21st in 84.27. Dave Norman used the race as part of a longer training run finishing in 54th place in 91.54, Sarah Thurley recorded a PB on 93.56 in 65th position and Holly Baddeley used the 13.1 miles as a middle block of an 18 mile run finishing in 139th place in 1.41.38.
The club’s marathon couple of Dave Joynson and Gillian Mitchell travelled to the Isle of Man for this weeks 26.2 mile adventure with Dave finishing in 3.23.26 in 22nd place and Gill coming home in 5.52.23 to take 82nd position.
And it was back to more fun on the fells on Wednesday night in the Ragleth Fell Race over 4.6k with 465m of ascent, Beth Rawlinson backed up her previous impressive performances over the Shropshire hills with a win in the ladies race and 12th overall in 33.10 and Paul Dean was not far behind in 31st in a time of 36.54. Also, on Wednesday Ben Foster made his club debut in the BRAT Summerfield Smash 5k with a 32nd place finish in a time of 17.15.
Dave Norman
