Flying Solo.

Alex Hill on top of the podium after winning the Brno 10k in the Czech Republic.
First of all my apologies for misleading you all last week by saying that entries in this month’s Magic Mile were due to end within hours. It is of course open until the end of the month.

From the current list of completed runs it certainly looks healthy from the perspective of our junior members, with 9 of the top 10 and 18 of the top 20 runners falling in to this category.

This week there are couple of actual road races to report on. Remember those ?

In the Czech Republic Alex Hill stormed to victory and in the Two Tunnels 10k Cadie Hibberd was first female, finishing her race with a new PB.

At The Pingles Stadium in Nuneaton 5 club members competed at the weekend, with 4 new club records being set and on Wednesday, masters athlete Mark Illingworth competed in the “Night of 100ms” an event that attracted a truly top class field from all over the country.

Enjoy the rest of your week and take care.

Best Wishes

David Jones

Ben Kruze winner of this month’s virtual Shakespeare Race.
August Shakespeare Virtual

5k race and Bike Hill Climb TT Results.

Report – David Smyth
Thank you to everyone that has taken part in the August Shakespeare Virtual 5k race and Bike Hill Climb TT. The Magic Mile continues to the end of the month so results for that will follow soon after.
This month saw numbers increase with over 119 participants across all the events compared to 91 last month – a 31% increase with the Virtual Shakespeare Race seeing a magnificent 36% increase on participants (94 versus 69 in July)!!
Once again many thanks to my fellow colleagues on the Virtual Race Committee: Sarah Bland, Matt Burdus-Cook and Ryan Bakewell without whom these results would not be available in such a timely manner. πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘

SHAKESPEARE VIRTUAL 5K RACE

Ladies πŸ†

πŸ₯‡ Georgina Campbell 00:18:03
πŸ₯ˆ Kate Wright 00:19:25
πŸ₯‰ Cadie Hibberd 00:20:20

Men’s πŸ†

πŸ₯‡ Ben Kruze 00:15:27
πŸ₯ˆ Matt Burdus-Cook 00:16:41
πŸ₯‰ Rob Minton 00:16:51

BIKE TT – LADY ELIZABETH’S HILL

Ladies πŸ†
πŸ₯‡ Cara Reynolds 00:09:18
πŸ₯ˆ Hannah Osbourne 00:09:35
πŸ₯‰ Emily Adams 00:09:54
Men’s πŸ†
πŸ₯‡ Ben Phyall 00:07:30
πŸ₯ˆ Matthew Lyness 00:08:08
πŸ₯‰ Joe Lee 00:08:28

BIKE TT – SAINTBURY HILL

Ladies πŸ†
πŸ₯‡ Kate Wright 00:05:57
πŸ₯ˆ Caroline Gionis 00:07:34
πŸ₯‰ Rebecca Pridham 00:09:08
Men’s πŸ†
πŸ₯‡ Andrew Cox 00:05:43
πŸ₯ˆ Joe Lee 00:05:52
πŸ₯‰ Ben Phyall 00:05:55

TEAM RESULTS (WINNERS FOR EACH CATEGORY):

Men’s
πŸ₯‡ No Name (Ben Kruze, Matt Burdus-Cook, Richard Liggatt, Caleb Spriggs)
Ladies
πŸ₯‡ Almost all the Em’s Trying to Keep Up (Emma Bexson, Emily Adams, Cara Reynolds, Emma Parkin)
Mixed
πŸ₯‡ Team Dobedoe & Co. (Wayne Vickers, Richard Dobedoe, Cadie Hibberd, Sophie Dobedoe)
Family & Village
πŸ₯‡ Family Campbell (Georgina, Ned, NIck, Tilly)

Personally I think the best team name goes to Cirque de Sore Legs (Sally Bliss, Gavin Bliss, Catherine Wiggins, Cherry Eden) closely followed by Agony of de Feet (Suzanne Ross, Robert Handy, Liuba Pasa, Beverley Brigden).

Well done to all the teams. I’ve not seen any photos of teams so cannot comment or judge on this but I am sure one of my Virtual Race Team Members will be able to update you on this!
All the results are available on the Tempo Events website (https://www.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16418&RId=673&EId=1) with the SAAC age group category results to follow once these have been compiled.

Flying the flag. The results of the Brno 10k showing Alex comfortably in 1st place
Brno 10k
Report – David Jones
As part of his training to become a pilot, club member Alex Hill is in the Czech Republic for 8 months. The training is apparently going really well with him recently flying solo, something that hasn’t exactly helped calm his mum, Jean Hill’s nerves.

While there he thought he might as well enter the local 10k race in Brno, the second largest city in the country.

Why wouldn’t you ?

He’d obviously packed his club vest just in case.

He was certainly flying solo in this race (sorry) comfortably finishing in 1st place, with a cushion of 25 seconds between himself and the next placed runner. There were 169 runners competing

Alex commented “it was a relatively flat course. It was actually 6.63 miles which I completed in 40.11 and I completed the 10k in 37.45 ”

Cadie Hibberd.
The results of the Two Tunnels 10k showing Cadie as 1st female finisher, some 43 seconds ahead of the next placed lady.
Two Tunnels 10k
Report – Cadie Hibberd.

This was a great event with each individual starting 90 seconds apart to ensure social distancing.

The run was slightly technical, with a railway path open to the public that went through two tunnels that was lit up by glow sticks. I had to dodge a few families on bikes in the dark! but thoroughly enjoyed the run!

My time of 40.57 makes it a PB by 7 seconds and I was very surprised with a position of first female, although the field was relatively small with 153 finishers in total.

The new normal isn’t so bad!

Emily Field
Nuneaton Senior & U20 Open and Night of 100 metres
Report – David Jones.

There has been more activity from T&F club members at The Pingles Stadium in Nuneaton this past week.

Last weekend saw 5 members competing in a Seniors and U20 meeting.

Peter Coote discovered that shedding 2 stone/13kg during lockdown doesn’t exactly help when competing in throwing events.

Despite this his best throw of 7.19m was sufficient to earn him a new club record. In the Javelin Peter’s best throw was 29.13m and he retains his number 1 UK ranking in his age group for this year.

Dave Wilson had a mixed day. He only entered the triple jump because he wasn’t sure he could secure a place in his favoured 400m.

In jumping 9.41 metres in the triple jump he broke his own club record. Having done this he thought he would throw caution to the wind and go for broke with his next attempt. Unfortunately the result of this was a tweaked hamstring meaning he had to withdraw from the 400m. He also had to withdraw from Wednesday’s “Night of 100ms” event at the same venue.

Imogen Sheppard doubled up on the day by competing in both the 100m and 200m and she was pleased with her races, especially as, like most of us, she hasn’t raced much this year.

Her 100m time of 13.04 was just 3/10ths of a second off her PB and 8/100ths of a second off her season’s best. In the 200m she finished in a time of 26.87. A big plus for Imy was that she got the chance to meet the guy who will be her coach at Birmingham University for the first time, together with a group of athletes who will be in her training group.

Emily Field also doubled up but this time in the longer distances of 400m and 800m, which is an extremely difficult thing to do. However, despite this she recorded a 3 second season’s best in the 800m with a time of 2:19.86, her previous best time for the year being 2:22.96. In the 400m she was 3/4 second off her season’s best, running a time of 62.4 seconds.

In the 800m I managed to shave just under a second off my SB with a time of 2:48.08, just 1.38 seconds shy of my PB from 2014. I also ran my first 200m for a couple of years, recording a time of 35.33, which is a new club record.

I think I’ll stick to the longer distances though!

On Wednesday evening it was a Night of 100m races and this event attracted a truly top class field from all over the country with the top 3 finishers in the A race are ranked 3rd, 4th and 5th in this year’s UK rankings.

The winning time by James Williams of 10.35 has only been beaten by Chijindu Ujay – 10.17 and Adam Gemili – 10.28 this year, with Gemili’s time being achieved on the same day in Hungary.

Representing our club was M60 master athlete Mark Illingworth. Mark’s time of 14.39 was just outside his club record time of 14.22 achieved at the same venue in July.