Polish gold and team fun
Polish gold and team fun
Please see this week’s update for Kent AC members – 24/03/24–
KENT AC NEWS BULLETIN
24 March 2024
We couldn’t have a newsletter without a report of new achievements by Clare Elms – not satisfied with a gold at the European Masters in Poland last Sunday, she won another 4 during the week! That, and the travelling, weren’t enough to tire her out, so she went and ran a relay leg today. Joe Appiah, the V50 world record holder in the 60mh, won a gold and a silver in Poland too, bringing the Kent medal total to 7. Full report below.
There were plenty of other good results this weekend, as runners fit races into their marathon training plans. The most impressive was George Russell, who won the Thames Riverside 20 in 2:00:06. Also impressing in the same race were Lin Skinner, who was 7th woman and 1st VW40 in 2:25:09, and Andy Wright in 2:29:10.
There were a couple of late results from last weekend – Katie Lang had a jaunt to Lisbon where she ran a half marathon in 1:52:13, and Matteo Gala came 5th in the Milton Keynes Half in 74:11.
Today we had a couple of runners in the hilly Hastings Half – James Royston in 98:38 and James Steatham in 2:12:26 – two in the Brentwood Half – John Slade in 90:48 and coach Ted Aston in 2:00:41 – and two at the Fleet Half – Simon Vaisey in 74:59 and Vic Buck in 89:16 (4th FW45)
And furthest of all, Arejeet Nag came 4h in the Lee Valley 50k in 3 hrs 39, including a marathon PB of 3:02.
Congratulations to everybody who ran!
We had a new committee appointment – Katie Lang has joined as a Welfare Officer.
The welfare team exists to ensure safeguarding of children and adults at risk (though this is everybody’s responsibility), helping to develop policy and occasionally dealing with concerns. If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know at .
TO TORUN RUN RUN!
Clare Elms had a busy week. On Sunday she ran the W60 3000m and won it by 21s, in 11:15.17. On Tuesday she ran the 8k Cross Country and won the W60 gold in 33:58, by almost a minute. On Thursday she ran the W60 800m and won that in 2:34.70, and on Saturday she won the 1500m, for which she’s the World Record holder, set last month, in 5:13.67, winning by 11s (some video here). Phew! She also won the team gold in the W60 cross-country, to take her total of shiny silverware to 5 golds! She then headed home and up to Milton Keynes to contribute to the Kent Women’s relay team!
Joe Appiah also had several races, competing in the 60m, 60mh and 200m relay. He was defending his European title, and is in fact unbeaten in Europe for 15 years! In the V50 60m he ran 3 races, with his quickest time in the final, of 7.53, which earned him 5th place. On Friday, in his main event, the V50 60m hurdles, he defended his title with a run of 8.47 – Joe commented that the 60m races took a lot out of him and he wasn’t fully fit for the hurdles, so concentrated on form rather than speed, which was enough to win. See a video of his gold winning run here. On Saturday he combined for the V50 200m relay in which GB won silver.
The World Masters Championships are in Gothenburg in August, maybe we’ll see more Kent gold then!
Kent men and women travelled to Milton Keynes this morning for the Southern 12 & 6 stage Road Relays, taking two teams each of men and women. While some key athletes were unavailable, reserves were called up and packs were shuffled so that we could complete 4 teams, and there were some impressive runs.
For the Men’s A team, Rob Sesemann led out the typically stacked first long leg (8.5k), and came home 11th in 26:42, our fastest long leg of the day. Dame Dibaba was our second runner, on the short leg (5k), and he picked up 2 places with our fastest short leg of the day in 15:28. Jake Simmonds held steady on 3, then captain Chris Busaileh on the 4th leg. Ben Clarke and 18 year old Joe English both gained a place – Joe’s run was the 7th fastest of his leg, our best result of the day – and Cam Dockerill on 7 gained 2 more, putting us in 6th with hopes of matching last year’s finish of 5th. It wasn’t to be, as Matt Speed, Nicholas Chevis, James Boustead and Calum Fraser ran well against tough opposition to bring us home in 9th.
The B team called up youths and part-timers to complete their 12, with Jasper Jones running the 4th leg and Rowan Crichton, in is own words, doing his first bit of exercise in 6 months on the last leg. The team came in 32nd, 7th of the B Teams, a creditable effort in the circumstances,
Full Men’s results
A team B Team
1 Rob Sesemann 26:42 Matteo Gala 30:15
2 Dame Dibaba 15:28 Ian Ellwood 17:15
3 Jake Simmonds 27:33 Nick Ostrowski 30:42
4 Chris Busaileh 16:12 Jasper Jones 17:54
5 Ben Clarke 27:33 Che Compton 29:23
6 Joe English 15:42 Luke Somnier 17:49
7 Cam Dockerill 27:37 Ben Armson 32:37
8 Jake Herrera 16:33 Matt Moroney 18:17
9 Matt Speed 28:20 Alex Harris 30:20
10 Nicholas Chevis 16:37 Ben Parker 19:34
11 James Boustead 27:59 Richard Giles 31:21
12 Calum Fraser 16:30 Rowan Crichton 18:14
Race report for the women’s teams from captain Alexa Parker:
It was a glorious day of racing in the sunshine for Kent AC ladies in Milton Keynes, with many runners making their road relay debuts for the club. The women bagged some excellent results, with the A team coming home in 8th place against some very tough competition, and the B team finishing 16th overall and 4th placed B team!
The A team went out hard, led by Bryony Proctor who got the team off to a storming start on a short leg (5k), coming home in 18:06 in 8th place. She was followed by Laura Suggitt (a late entry, saving the B team from the fate of incompleteness), in her first ever race for Kent AC, who ran a fabulous leg of 21:15 mins coming home in 22nd place. We hope to see more of her in future races for Kent!
Cat Gillespie, a recent Kent joiner, took the first long leg for the A team (c.8.7k) in her stride, sailing round in 32:19 (the 13th fastest long leg of the day!) and gaining a place to come home in 7th to hand over the baton to Claire Oxlade. Claire then ran a very competitive 5k leg in 19:14, gaining a further place to move the team into 6th. For the B team, the first long leg was handled masterfully by Parris Williams, with 8.7k no match for the ironman competitor, gaining 2 places to move the team into the top 20, finishing in 37:42. Parris handed over to Anna Delis, who took a break from training for the Manchester marathon to run a very strong short leg in 23:01, also gaining a place for the team. Ellie Freeden and Sally Urquhart then took on the challenge of the second long leg, both putting in a fantastic effort on a pretty gruelling route. Both ran very respectable times of 34:11 and 37:24, with Sally gaining 3 places for the B team and Ellie maintaining the top 10 standing for the A team.
Clare Elms took up the mantle of the penultimate short leg, putting in an admirable stint considering she had just spent the week racing in Poland winning 5 European gold medals! She ran 19:31 to hand over to Alexa Parker, also (not so) fresh off the plane, from Mexico. Alexa ran 18:01, the 11th fastest short leg of the day, gaining a place to finish in 8th. All the A team ladies finished in the top 11 of their legs which is an impressive feat!
For the B team, Sofia Contino switched out of her usual 400m sprinting spikes to run a solid 24:19, passing to Suze Spalding who completed out the team by taking one place to finish in 16th, having run an impressive 21:29, a huge 5k PB for her, also in the midst of intense marathon training.
Huge well done to everyone that ran and contributed to a fantastic day out for Kent. It was great to get two teams out for the race, demonstrating the depth of the women of Kent.
Full Women’s results
A team B Team
1 Bryony Proctor 18:06 Laura Suggitt 22:43
2 Cat Gillespie 32:19 Parris Williams 37:42
3 Clare Oxlade 19:14 Anna Delis 23:01
4 Ellie Freeden 34:11 Sally Urquhart 37:24
5 Clare Elms 19:31 Sofia Contino 24:19
6 Alexa Parker 18:01 Suz Spalding 21:29
Looking forward to the nationals in 2 weeks time which looks set to be a great race. If anyone hasn’t signed up yet and would like to, the link for the spreadsheet is here.
MASTERING THE RELAYS
Sign up is now open for the British Masters Road Relays at Mallory Park, Leicester –
the biggest Masters road event in the UK on Saturday the 25th May 2024.
The Relays are billed as ‘the biggest masters road event’ so therefore we’d like to enter men’s and women’s teams in as many vets categories as possible (35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-74 and 75+) and we’d like to aim for as many medals as possible too!
The course is a traffic free 3 mile loop around a lake for each leg on tarmac, with licensed café on site and camping available. It is possible to get there on time via public or private transport on the day, and the club will contribute to transport costs, so please embrace the opportunity of travelling to and running at Mallory Park.
Further details are here and the all important sign up sheet is here.
If you have any questions, then contact Jules, Nicky or Lin.
AN EVENT TO SPRING UPON YOU
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
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)
VOLUNTEERS REALLY NEEDED
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.
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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