IT’S A BTC CAKEWALK ON THE PROM!

The club’s progressive BTC training group could have chosen a more clement night for their Christmas social burnup, but with the rain fortunately relenting at just the right time, our runners defied the blustery conditions to take the race by their own storm and produce the fastest race for years in the Weston Prom 5M series.

Led by Notts’ former Midland champion and current UK marathon squad member JOHNNY THEWLIS, the group ended up with seven of the first eight to finish and four others in the top 20, while there were fine performances too from three other club members DAVE EAGON, ANDY COOKE and ALEX WHITTAKER who all made the top 20 of the huge field that snaked its way up and down the Prom in a veritable charge of the light brigade.

Johnny was having his first race since his sub 2:16 clocking in the Berlin marathon, but characteristically was in no mood to be sat on and took the pace on aggressively from the start, shadowed at first by HARRY ALLEN and KURT TAYLOR for the opening of the three out and back laps, with CALLUM JONES, ANDY WATT and ALEX CROSSLAND leading the chase.

Kurt perhaps wisely decided the pace being set at the front was beyond him on the second switchback, but Harry, undeterred and with the confidence of his recent altitude training stint behind him, hung on doggedly until the final lap when Johnny’s career-honed stamina took its toll. Yet he certainly knew he’d been in a race as his winning time of 24:39 testified – the fastest time recorded here for many years.

Behind him Harry never gave up the chase, finishing no more than 60m back and rewarded with a spectacular personal best of 24:50 for his pains. Kurt meanwhile was tracked all the way by the tenacious Andy Watt, who never fails to surprise these days, but he seemed to find another gear on the last switchback and pull right away from his clubmate to finish a clear third in a time only just short of his best of 25:12. Andy for his part may have tired in the closing stages, but still posted another significant personal best of 25:33 to add to the remarkable 10K time he clocked in the Leeds Abbey Dash.

Further back Alex kept plugging away to finish only just over 10 seconds behind Andy in a more encouraging time of 25:44, while Callum, who by his own admission is still only half fit due to his chronic groin strain, tired percepibly in the closing stages following his fast start but still had enough in the tank to sneak under 26mins in 25:59 and hold off the fast-finishing David Eagon (26:04) and Josh Moody (26:06) who has been suffering with a remarkably similar pelvic problem to Callum and finished well satisfied in his first race for months. As for Dave’s effort he merely emphasised that he is one of the most improved runners
in the club this autumn.

Much the same could be said about Andy Cooke, who is up to the V40 category now and looked well chuffed to have made the top 10 in yet another lifetime best of 26:20, while immediately behind him the club’s latest recruit young ALEX MALE also confirmed his undoubted promise with a more than useful time for a junior of 26:26. ADAM STOKES, who has been nursing a niggling achilles, had to settle for 14th position in 27:09 just ahead of PETE BAINS, who was another to post a big pb of 27:13. The two others to make the top 20 were ANDY DRAKE 17th in 27:32 and ALEX WHITTAKER 18th in 27:58.

Any assessment of the times recorded for the race must take into account both the windy conditions on the day and the five stop ‘n’ start turns demanded by the switchback course, so everyone can clearly go faster which just underlines the on-going progress of our current crop. Let’s keep it rolling!

NEXT CHAPTER – THE RACE OF THE YEAR!

Applications are now open for the Peter Hargreaves Performance Awards & the Peter Hargreaves Scholarships for young athletes.

Application forms can be downloaded here:

• Performance Awards (Athletes aged 18+)
• Scholarship Grants (U18s)

Completed forms should be returned to Mike Down – mike.down@blueyonder.co.uk  by 14th January 2020.

Following last week’s individual and team triumph in the Tri-Counties cross championships, our runners split their resources this past weekend between the much vaunted Telford 10K and the domestic challenge of the third Gwent League race at Blaise Castle.

The Blaise race was particularly significant for the long awaited comeback of the club’s former junior international BEN WESTHENRY and return from injury of ANDY CHAMBERS. These two were joined among others by ANDY WATT, whose progress has been a revelation this autumn but who himself was returning from an inactive fortnight’s holiday in South America.

So there were question marks all round, but the way Ben attacked the three undulating three lap course from the start you could have thought he had never been away! He took the bull by the horns, opening up a lead of as much as 30-40 metres on the first two laps, but a combination of an ankle roll suffered midrace and a predictable reaction to such an aggressive approach in his first race for two years saw him run out of gas on the last lap and have to settle for 7th place at the end.
Nonetheless it was a remarkable resumption to what had been a promising junior career before an overuse shin injury suffered during a short athletics schoalarship stay in the U.S. left him so exasperated that he made an early return to the UK. Now happily based back with his alma mater in Bristol studying for a Ph.D. and hopefully finally clear of his chronic shin problem, it should not be long before he underlines his outstanding natural talent.

While one’s attention was inevitably focussed on Ben’s comeback effort, behind him ANDY CHAMBERS, who had shown fine early season form finishing not far behind JACK MILLAR in October’s Cardiff cross challenge, was also returning to action after before being sidelined for the past month due to an ankle sprain suffered warming up for the Cardiff race together with a recurrence of the back problem that grounded him for the first half of the year. Unlike Ben he purposely started cautiously, and although never in contact with the leaders soon worked his way through to a position in the top six and gradually closed the gap to finish in 4th place in a race that he thought he could have won if his training had not been interrupted. Like Ben he still has plenty of time to prepare for the championships early in the new year.

Andy and Ben’s efforts sandwiched those of ANDY WATT and JOHNNY SUTTLE, who both took their time to work their way through a number of the early
pacesetters to finish 5th and 6th respectively just ahead of Ben. Andy, having missed a couple of weeks running, decided to refrain from racing hard early on, which clearly acted as a spur to Johnny, who underlined his ongoing progress by producing what was arguably his besr ever performance on the country.

Four in the first seven must have removed any lingering concerns team manager CHRIS ELSON may have held about the club’s continued domination of the men’s League, while to underline it behind our leading quartet  MACIEJ BIALOGONSKI (15th), GRAHAM BREEN (18th), OLLIE SHEPPARD (20th), ROB FARLEY (21st), PETE BAINS (39th) and ANDY DRAKE (54th) provided further backup in the huge field of some 400 runners.

As for the Telford 10K, like the also much heralded Leeds Abbey Dash, it more than lived up to its reputation for producing fast times, with Scotland’s ADAM CRAIG winning in a spectacular 28:32 from Birchfield’s Ethiopian born OMAR AHMED (28:39). HARRY ALLEN as expected headed the B&W contingent and duly set a new personal best by just over a quarter of a minute at 30:17. Frustrated as he was at not finally realising his dream of breaking the 30 minute barrier for the first time that had been fuelled by three weeks altitude training in Kenya and a best ever mile rep session midweek at Aztec West, it was his first race since the National 6-srtage relay in early October and the culmination of a heavy training mileage during the interim that he had decided not to ease up for before yesterday’s event. Clearly there is much more to come from Harry down the line, especially when one considers that he was more than a minute slower at Telford last year.

Our new Tri-Counties champion FELIX MCGRATH, who conveniently had just taken up a new locum appoitment at a Telford hospital, was just outside his pb with a time of 31:04, and he will probably rationalise that his recent solo training on the hilly terrain of North Wales where he has been based was hardly ideal preparation for a fast course like Telford’s.

Further back there were new pb’s all round. Recent recruit JOE CONNORS clipped nearly half a minute off his previous best to dip under 32mins for the first time with 31:58. JED BARTLETT was hoping to go faster, but his 32:39 still shaved second or so off his best, while ANDY COOKE and BEN MALLIPHANT were both only a few seconds from breaking 33mins for the first time with times of 33:04 and 33:06 respectively. On the debit side ADAM WILSON unfortunately failed to finish despite apparently setting a 5K pb at halfway. Perhaps Ads should offer his services to the society of pacemakers as finishing is not part of the deal and he could indulge what he does best! Joking apart, I am sure he will eventually get the message and fulfil his undoubted talent.

Not to be outdone KURT TAYLOR reports a multiterrain Parkrun effort of 15:48 in Surrey that was nearly half a minute faster than he recorded last year on the same course. Keep it up guys!!

Mike Strange reports:
South West Indoor Champs – NIAC Cardiff – 1 st December. The Track & Field season opened with a bang at Cardiff last week-end with the Welsh
Regional Championships and incorporating part 1 of the English South Wet Junior Indoor Championships.

But first we should recognise a great return to Pole Vaulting by Caroline ‘Cally’ WALDER our U20 star. In the spring of 2019 Cally seriously injured her back whilst Pole Vaulting. With perseverance Cally finally reached full health and fitness again and last week-end at Lee Valley she competed in a competition mainly comprising of Men and managed to clear a near pb of 3.52m. Well done Cally and welcome back to competition. We will need you in the new and highly competitive Joint National League competition.

At Cardiff I will highlight the BOWELL Sisters where Ella U15 completed a fine double in the Long Jump (4.86m) to take Silver in the South West Champs (SWC) and the 200m with a 28.13 secs (Silver SWC) and Sophia U13 jumped 3.54 to take (Bronze SWC) her first competitive medal. Jasmine RICHARDS U13 followed Sophia in the Long Jump with a leap of 3.33m (4 SW) and a very competent 200m of 31.27 secs for the Bronze Medal.

Tamara JACKSON U15 set herself a big task by going for a 200m / 300m double with very little previous experience of the tight Indoor bends. In the 200m she was quite shy of the bends and in the 300m she flowed off at a great rate but hit the wall early then hung on well to the bitter end. Despite Tam going through those learning cycles she still performed excellent debut times of 28.46 & 48.47 secs. Do go for that 300m again Tam but with a more reserved initial drive.

Under 15 Alice MATTHEWS was disappointed with her 300m run because after starting too fast last year she set off cautiously. Unfortunately in a good class race she slipped behind and strive as she would never got back into the running. Never the less her final time of 47.09 was still very creditable.

Ellie BREEZE U17 ran a very respectable 200m in 28.11 secs but was no match for the ultimate outstanding Champion Delleuh BELGRAVE from Swindon who is Coached by our own Paul WESTON.

In the Field Events Evie MOIR U13 had to wait a long time to come into the competition as she was seeded in the ‘B’ competition and all the less accomplished competitors were in that but when she did come in she had the floor to herself and achieved a new Club Record to take the Gold Medal with a 1.35 clearance.
Also in the field was the outstanding U17 Moni BRADY who threw an excellent 9.21m with the 3 k Shot.

On the Male side young Owen GARRETT U13improved no end on his last years performances and smashed his own Club Record with a 7.24m throw to take the Gold Medal.

The other B&W male competitors were confined to the track and I was most impressed with young Tom MULLEE’s U15 performances. Just out of the lower age group Tom ran an excellent 45.25 secs for the Silver Medal in the 300m following a very sound 200m in 27.47. Great running by someone so young. Also in the 200m U15 we had a B&W Club race with three of our outstanding star performers with Ryan BRADY taking the Gold Medal with 25.14 secs followed by Maxon PECCOO with the Silver in 25.45 followed by Ishaq RAHMAN in 26.07.

Overall a very profitable South West Championships for Bristol & West AC showing that the Y.A. Academy is really working.

Mike Strange – 3 Dec 2019

A reminder that the deadline for applications is 30-NOV.

The club has been allocated 4 places for the London Marathon 2020.  If any club members would like to bid for one of these places please email Owain Jones: secretary@bristolandwestac.org.

When allocating places preference will be given to athletes who have applied for and missed out in the event ballot and those who have supported the club regularly as a volunteer or as an athlete over the past year.  The deadline for applications is 30-NOV-2019, please include a copy of your ballot rejection notification and any other reasons why you think you should be allocated one of the places.

Please note that EA only permit these places to be allocated to current competing club members.