No Half Measures!
No Half Measures!
Please see this week’s update for Kent AC members – 03/03/24–
KENT AC NEWS BULLETIN
3 March 2024
There was a Kent parkrun takeover yesterday at Dulwich, where we supplied most of the pacers and plenty of runners and volunteers in a huge turnout of over 650 runners. While our competitive numbers were down due to Sunday races, Jon Tipper managed 4th in 16:09 just ahead of Joseph Yee, and Jake Simmonds paced 13 year old George Searle to a tremendous PB of 17:42.
In other races this week, Andrew Colley and Sally Urquhart ran the Battersea 10k in 36:57 (PB) and 43:17, Luke Rowland ran 33:34 at the Trafford 10k with Annie Birch not far behind in 34:42 (PB), and Rich Jones went a bit further than that to Anglesey where he ran a half marathon in 1:41.
Closer to home, and over a much shorter distance a few of our runners went to the Sutcliffe 60s where they put up some highly creditable performances:
Nathan Brown 7.14/7.17 (11th overall)
Jack Jones (U17) 7.48/7.46
Joe Appiah (V50) 7.55/7.63
Aaron Philip Miller-Broderick 8.06/8.32
Cheryl Adjadi (U15) 8.58/8.64
We have a reminder of the imminent spring road relay season, in which we hope to do as well as we did last year. Sign up link is below if you’re interested in participating.
In addition, there’s the Welsh Castles relays in June, a fun and challenging event that we won last year. Chris Busaileh is attempting to put together a team of 20 to travel up and defend our title.
There’s a new date for your calendars – the Dulwich Relays are on 19th June. This is a very fun event, relay teams of 3 runners each doing one lap of Dulwich Park (1 mile) on the parkrun course, and we historically have a great record in this. There will be signups closer to the date.
Events can’t be held without officials, and we’re encouraging more of our members to get qualified as athletics officials. There’s an in-person course happening in Medway Park on March 23 March, which will give the foundation of training to be a track, field or starter official. A few people from Kent will be going down, and there are places in cars available, so sign up if you’re interested.
Our women’s cross country captain Sarah Hanley is stepping down, which creates a vacancy for the position. If you’re interested, please get in touch.
I’LL HAVE A HALF PLEASE
There were a couple of big half marathons that Kent sent plenty of runners to – Paddock Wood, which is an annual pilgrimage for Kent, and Cambridge.
At Paddock Wood we had 33 runners 19 of whom set PBs. Nicholas Torry came first in a British V45 record of 65:37 – he was previously second on the all time list with his Paddock Wood run from 2022. A great achievement!
Nick running solo [pic credit Mark Hookway]
We had several notable category medals, including Nick Torry (1st VM40), Phil Sanders (1st VM50), Amy Clements (2nd woman and 2nd VW35), Catherine Kandie (3rd woman and 3rd VW35) and Lin Skinner (1st Kent County VW45)
Catherine Gillespie, Catherine Kandie, Amy Clements, Alison Thomson
Full results:
1 Nick Torry 65:37 (V45 Brit record, 1st VM40)
18 Jake Herrera 70:44 PB
22 Ben Hope 71:46
24 Barnaby Day 71:58
40 Phil Sanders 73:09 (1st VM50)
42 Kendal Noctor 73:16 PB
46 Jonathan Griffiths 73:47
51 Rob Laing 74:04
52 Ian Clarke 74:04 PB
58 Philip Woodford-Smith 74:20 PB
59 Che Compton 74:32
85 George Hobhouse 76:33 PB
94 Amy Clements 77:16 (2nd woman, 2nd VW35)
Patrick Nation 77:47 PB
Nicholas Ostrowski 78:00 PB
Catherine Kandie 80:22 PB (3rd woman, 3rd VW35)
John Glichrist 81:31 PB
Alison Thomson 81:57 PB
Catherine Gillespie 82:54 PB
Samuel Taylor83:19 PB
Iago Martinez 84:14 PB
Matthew Bouette 84:28 PB
Will Ross 86:18 PB
Elinor Skinner 87:58 (1st Kent County VW45)
Nicola Cartlidge 96:12
Becky Fox 1:41:48
Sarah Young 1:46:24
Jo Wint 1:46:59
Anna Delis 1:47:02 PB
Ronnie Haydon-Jones 1:48:15
Jacqueline Phillips-Owen 1:54:32 PB
Karen Samuel 1:58:52
Sarah Maris-Shaw 2:18:47 PB
Paddock Wood men
Up at Cambridge we had 9 finishers:
Chris Mullin 72:13 PB
Charlie Passfield 74:51 PB
Matthew Thomas 81:33
Joe Daniel 89:36
Suz Spalding 98:14 PB
Martin Morgan 99:10
Ivona Gongolova 1:41:00
Darren Thomas 1:46:44
Congratulations to all who ran, especially those with new PBs!
ROAD RELAYS
With the cross country season now over and spring just around the corner, that means relay season is here. This year’s dates are:
Sunday 24 March– Southern Road Relays (Milton Keynes)
Saturday 6 April – National Road Relays (Sutton Coldfield)
For the women, teams are of 6 and the legs are about 5k in length. For the men, it’s 12 legs; 6 long of around 8k and 6 short which around 5k. For those of you who haven’t been before, the course at the Nationals in particular is so lovely.
We will enter as many teams as the club can fill. As has been the case throughout the XC season, we have been fantastic at turning out large numbers and we would love this to be the case at the relays.
The sign-up sheet is ready so do please put your name down. Note that the Southerns has a strict entry deadline of 12 March. That’s a Tuesday and bearing in mind the entry form is not exactly user friendly, you should assume team managers need names for submission by 10 March. If you’re a maybe, then please say so on the sheet.
Chris Busaileh will be managing the men’s teams and Alexa Parker the women’s so please get in touch with either if you have questions.
WELSH CASTLES
Chris Busaileh writes:
Last chance to register your interest for Welsh Castles Relay on 8/9 June 2024. Entries close on 10 March and we’re close to having enough for a full team but are not quite there yet. It’s a significant amount of money to enter (which the club has kindly agreed to fund) so we need to be confident of filling a team.
Sign up here
XC POST SEASON FEEDBACK
James Boustead writes:
Now then everyone, unfortunately, a rather anticlimactic finish to what’s been a blast of a 2023/24 XC season! A Huge thanks to everyone for getting stuck in, we’ll look to send out a few of the seasons highlights over the next week or so. Just a quick one before we go full steam ahead into road relays prep… if you’ve raced XC at all this season, we’d really appreciate you taking a minute to jot down your feedback on any parts you particularly enjoyed and any parts you feel like there’s scope to improve (all completely anonymous). There’s also a poll to gauge interest for the deferred national XC in September.
SAVE THE DATE
After the huge success of last year’s Coronation Games, we’re thrilled to announce our first open track meet of the year including the return of the Gunpowder Mile.
Save the date for now, information on entries and more to follow.
TIME FOR AN ADVENTURE..
Our co-President Len Reilly has floated an idea for a couple of challenges for the summer, if we can get enough participants.
Welsh 3000’ peaks in a day.
This is a tough day out taking in all 15 summits over 3000’ in Snowdonia (Eryri as it is now). Its 24 miles summit-to-summit and maybe 30 road to road, with about 4000m of up and down, some of it over rough rocky steep loose terrain, and no guarantee of good weather.
I’m already committed to this on weekend 29/30 June.
I have inexpensive characterful basic bunkhouse accommodation for up 13 people and perfectly located for this. It’ll need cars to get there and a couple of supporters to take people to the start and to minister supplies at the road crossings.
More here: https://www.welsh3000s.co.uk/
London Loop in 24 hours
The London Loop is a 150 mile (poorly) signposted walk starting (or finishing) in Erith and finishing (or starting) in Purfleet and following paths roughly inside the M25. It breaks down into anything between 16 and 24 sections, their ends reachable by public transport, mostly trains. The challenge would be to do it as a relay in a single 24 hour push. A quick calculation gives an average moving speed of 10 min miles and my experience of doing bits of it shows that’s not easy, and that’s in daylight and for some of the time knowing where I am. It’ll need good planning, good navigation, extensive use of Oyster cards, a short night and occasional use of headtorches. And maybe some route reccing before.
We would need to start in the middle of the day to take advantage of the 24 hour trains that serve west London and the easy night time navigation along the canals.
Weekends of 22/23 June or13/14 or 27/28 July are possibilities, or even midweek.
If there were lots of interest we could have one squad going clockwise and the other the other way.
More here:
https://innerlondonramblers.org.uk/ideasforwalks/loop-guides.html
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
A summary of dates for your diary
March
24 – Southern Relays – Milton Keynes
April
6 – National Road Relays – Sutton Coldfield
21 – London Marathon
25 – Kent AC Spring Open
May
5 – KYAL Norman Park
18 – Southern Athletics League – Dartford
June
15 – Southern Athletics League – Thurrock
19 – Dulwich Relays
22 – KYAL – Medway
July
14 – Southern Athletics League – St Albans
28 – KYAL – Norman Park
August
3- 10k Sri Chimnoy Battersea Park (club champs)
10 – KYAL – Dartford
17 – Southern Athletics League – Ware
September
1 – Big Half (club champs)
LET’S MAKE IT OFFICIAL
Athletics needs more officials, and volunteering in this way is a wonderful way to give back to the club.
This is a great opportunity to help get club events’ results on Power of 10. And it’s fun.
Our SAL performances not only need athletes, but also qualified officials – so you can directly contribute to our success! Every qualification counts!
It’s a straightforward process that the club will pay for, with more detail on available courses here.
There will be in person training for officials at Medway Park on March 24, to take people from beginner to level 1. Several Kent members are likely to travel to this. Phil Marsden and Ellie Brown have said they can take passengers. Signups and timings for the courses are below:
Track: 1000-1230 – https://www.athleticshub.co.uk/login?s_id=9cf4365557a3d3a9f4e7e5748f6e5052
Field: 1000-1500 – https://www.athleticshub.co.uk/login?s_id=c69db2ab2d1e3cc370ceddce089a0407
Starter: 1000-1230 – https://www.athleticshub.co.uk/login?s_id=12fb6613d40a50cea8c2e898b6f93379
Please contact Jacqueline Francis for more info.
It would be great to see a few more people put their names down to help out!
EASYFUNDRAISING
Over 7,000 brands pay easyfundraising a commission when you start your shop through their platform, so you can raise FREE donations for us no matter what you’re buying. These donations really help us out, so please sign up if you haven’t yet. It’s easy and FREE! You can get started at https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/kentac
You can also install a helpful Chrome extension, which prompts you to donate whenever doing any online shopping – really handy
TRACK, TRACK, TRACK
Buy your track pass here.
The usual track times are:
Tuesday 17:30 – 20:30
Thursday 18:00 – 20:30
Sunday 09:00 – 11:30
Please note that individuals are permitted to do their own sessions during club opening times, but coached group sessions continue to take priority.
Track Pass – Juniors
Please purchase your £5 junior monthly track pass in advance here. When purchasing the track pass can parents/guardians please enter the athlete’s name when completing the transaction
Please see a helpful FAQs guide here
Ladywell Arena has opening hours dedicated to the public. While during these times the Kent AC track pass is not valid, members can pay for an individual session.
Session times are:
Monday: 07:00 -15:00
Tuesday – Thursday: 1300 -1700
Friday: 07:00 – 15:00
Saturday – Sunday: 09:00-15:00
Price:
Adult resident: £2.70
Adult non resident: £3.00
Junior (U16): £1.30
The Kent AC track pass continues to be required for training on Tues/Thurs evenings and Sunday mornings.
Track staff have encouraged people to double check the opening hours before their training session, as they may occasionally be closed for school sport days and football friendlies. Hours can be checked here. This will likely suit members who can’t make training sessions but would like to train in the morning/lunchtime/evening.
Pay as you go fees can either be paid via cash to the desk or using the Better app (note: staff are working to add the sessions to the app).
KEEP US UPDATED
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