Chairman Paul Hawkins photographed on Thursday holding the County Championship Trophy. Paul Bearman, who visited Paul to present him with the trophy reports that the really good news from Planet Hawkins is that he’s looking forward to returning …..socially distanced…..in January. We’re counting the days Paul, as I’m sure are you. It will probably annoy Paul that I’ve led with this photo which seems as good a reason as any for doing it!
This week it’s largely about the various awards made at the track, recognising success in September’s Club Championships.
A quick head count from the featured photos shows close to 150 track based junior athletes, together with close to 20 coaches showed up for these awards that were made in front of the pavilion.
This strikes me as a pretty good reminder of the strength of our junior section.
Not to be outdone, some of our successful Vets T&F team held their own Club Champs Awards on Monday night.
Let’s hope that in ’22 we can revert to holding our normal type indoor Awards night. Fingers crossed.
Finally, believe it or not, we actually had some members racing last weekend. See Emma Parkin’s Draycote Water report.
After a good deal of deliberation and after consulting Kate, Jo and my wife Ann we made the difficult decision not to go ahead with hosting the Christmas Run at my house this year.
We think this is a sensible and safe decision to make considering the current high incidence of Covid.
All members will be seeing loved ones over the Christmas period and it just seems such an unnecessary risk to take.
That’s the bad news – the good news is that the actual runs are still going ahead as follows
Tim Hutchinson will lead a 7-9 mile run over the Welcombe Hills, starting at 10.15 and meeting at the top of Maidenhead Road.
There are roadworks at the top of Maidenhead Road so it would be best if you park at the sports club and jog up to the start point
Sarah Odell will be leading a 10k run from the sports club at 10am. It will be out to Clifford Chambers, Milcote then back down The Greenway.
Some of you will have done the Stratford 10k so it’s pretty similar. Everyone is welcome. It will be a nice steady pace.
Kate Sergent will be leading a 5k run at 10am, that starts and finishes at the club house and takes in a lovely route on both sides of the river.
This run will be suitable for runners of all speeds and Martyn will be the back marker to make sure no-one is left behind or gets lost. Hopefully some of the new Couch to 5k graduates will take part.
There will be other runners looking after faster paces.
Feel free to wear your Christmas hats and fancy dress on all of the runs.
The winners. Mark Illingworth (3rd senior member with 129 points) seems to have dropped off the grid. Apologies Mark
Crisis what Crisis ?
A pretty healthy showing for a December night at the track. The respective age groups and their coaches gather at The Awards,
The Club Championships Awards.
Report – Paul Bearman
The Club Championships were held way back in September and for one reason or another we delayed the presentation of the medals and trophies until this week.
In total 165 medals and trophies were presented to our athletes from the Under 11s to the seniors.
In addition we had on show the Warwickshire County Championship trophy that some of our wonderful Age Group coaches are pictured with to recognise the huge amount of effort and commitment they put in all year round coaching and nurturing our athletes.
I also wanted Paul Hawkins to be a part of the celebration of receiving the County Champs trophy and the good news is he’s looking forward to returning….socially distanced ….. in January.
Thank you to everyone who supports our Track based athletes and have a Happy and Safe Christmas.
The Coaching Team
The reason why we’ve got such a talented bunch of juniors is because we’ve got such a talented and committed bunch of coaches. Missing in action are the coaches from the Thursday Endurance Group, which I guess is down to me for forgetting to take a photograph them. They know who they are and what a great bunch they are.
Maybe we’ll get a retrospective one.
U11s coaches: Katja Berg, Carolyne Johnstone, Michelle Bartlett, Charlotte Gravelsons, Faye Gourlay, Kate Jones and Kaili Woodward. ( missing Emma Sparrow and Adam Linforth)
U13 coaches Nick Campbell, Sandy Green, Katja Berg, Cait Davis and Nicola Ford ( missing Paivi McMillan and Richard Harrison )
U17&U20 coaches – Dave Battersby, Imogen Green, Sandy Green, Paul Bearman, Carolyne Johnstone and Cait Davis.
U11 Benji Fernandez – the youngest winner.
The Christmas Games Session.
The traditional Christmas Games session took place on Thursday night for the early group of our endurance athletes, who enjoyed a mince pie relay, a cracker relay and new for this year, an under under backwards forward relay.
It would be fair to say it was somewhat manic but hugely enjoyable nonetheless.
Many thanks to photographers Maisie-Joy Spriggs and Maddie Linfoot who magnanimously waived their usual fee for taking these photos. So
generous.
Thursday night’s early group of endurance runners with some of the coaches.
Emily Cottam out in front in the mince pie relay.
Sam Plumb leads the cracker relay. I just know he’s going to want a medal!
The Gatecrasher…….there’s always one……it just wouldn’t be the same without Emily and her outfit…….on second thoughts……
Gathering for The Awards.
Not to be outdone, Monday night at the track saw a quartet of the club’s successful Vets T&F team collect their awards for their efforts in September’s Club Championships.
Pictured L to R are Alastair Webb – 2nd in the Senior Men’s category, Dave Wilson – 1st place in the same category, Elaine Ledden who won the Senior Women’s category and Mark Illingworth 3rd Senior male.
Meanwhile some club members actually ran a race this week!
Tara Lambert and Emma Parkin.
Draycote Water 10k Report – Emma Parkin
I decided to enter Draycote Water 10k having been a little disappointed with how I felt at the Alcester 10k in October.
Obviously, the plan was to train better for it (who was I kidding?) and have a cheerful pacer (but poor Cara was injured and couldn’t race). Tara and I still managed to make up a reduced Ettington contingent and arrived to an incredibly balmy December day.
I did feel a lot better than at Alcester despite a surprising number of undulations along the route. My aim of going sub-48 minutes wasn’t quite realised as the warm weather meant a water stop was essential.
My official finish time was 48:16, a frustrating 2 seconds over my Alcester time. I finished in 58th place and was 5th in my age category. However, my Garmin thankfully proved that I had indeed gone a little faster than my previous race so all is not lost.
Tara was 68th in a time of 50.38 and 6th in her age category. Also running was fellow club member Ben Phyall who finished in 23rd place with a time of 42.52. Ben was 3rd in his age category.
235 runners completed the race,
Bring on the mince pies!
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