Rising to the Challenges.

Millie Leighton doing her drills after her morning run and before schooling - dedication or what ? I'm sure that puts lots of us to shame. It's a glorious sunny day as I put the finishing touches to this week's newsletter, my wife has just taken the scissors to my hair and there does seem as though there is some light at the end of what has been a very long tunnel and maybe, just maybe we'll be enjoying each others company again before too long. This week there's a bit of a mixed bag with an article by Dave Battersby on the Juniors' Half Term Challenge, there's also an interesting article on hurdling from Paul Bearman. We have a smashing report on The Pridham's/Osborne/Spriggs Magic Mile and finally a short piece on Andrew Pozzi's participation in the 60m hurdles final in Madrid earlier in the week, a race that saw Colin Jackson's 27 year old world record broken. Try and enjoy the sunshine. Take care. David Jones. Alex McMillan and Charlotte Gravelsons - two of our juniors who took part in the Half Term Challenge. Half Term Challenge Report - Dave Battersby. Given the recent stay at home half term, the coaching team decided to set a half term challenge for junior members. This was focussed on trying to set some achievable yet mixed goals for the week and we asked the athletes to do at least 5 miles of training in 5 different sessions. This was to include an event that was not running, a session of speed training and a longer run of at least 2 miles. This also gave the athletes the opportunity to try entering their sessions on Strava, which I am not sure is entirely a good thing given the addictive hold the app has over some of our senior members! Athletes to complete the challenge were: - Ruby Edwards - with lots of hill walking and some Strong Yoga (Which sound like something we should all do more of) - Alex Mcmillan - covering 54 km on his bike. - Joshua Roberts - who threw some rowing in as his alternative to running. - Sam Plumb - mixing in a couple of virtual cycling sessions on Peleton into the mix with lots of cross country running and hills with puppy Maisie too. - Charlotte Gravelsons - who threw in some Pylometrics - that should help with the hurdles later in the year. - Oliver Battersby - who mixed up his athletics and his scouts by recording a local "virtual" treasure hunt as one of his activities. - Micha Hall - with a good 5 k run. Please do get back to me on dave_stratfordac53@yahoo.com if I have missed anybody off the list, there was some slight confusion with respect to e-mails. All the athletes also recorded some great faster sessions including hill reps and sprints, it should put them in good stead moving forward. Well done to all who got involved, there were…