News: December 2021

With the track closed for a fortnight over the Christmas Period, squads opted to continue their hard work in the parks in Stevenage and North Hertfordshire during the festive break.

The Endurance and sprints squads were at the lakes on the Sunday before Christmas for hills sessions. Fairlands Valley was also the venue for the Jumps/Hurdles Squad on the 23rd Dec, while a park in Shefford has seen the older members of the group in action on the 20th, 22nd, 27th and 29th. The last session for this squad before returning to the track on the 4th January is in Shefford on the 30th at 10.30am. The sprints and endurance squads will be back at Fairlands Lakes this coming Sunday morning (also 10.30). The cross country and indoor competition season resumes early January, with athletes competing at County, Regional and National Level Indoors and Out (fixtures lists are on the Club’s website).

The draft summer fixture list should be available mid January.

U17 Bobby Pitman took part in his first Indoor Combined Event Championships at Lee Valley at the weekend. Competing at the South of England Combined Events Championships, this was Bobby’s first competition as an U17.

Day 1 saw PBs in the 60m 7.87, LJ 5m10 (first time over 5m that wasn’t wind assisted), SP 8m63 with a 5kg shot, and HJ 1m51. Day 2 started with the 60m Hurdles, Hurdles now at 91cm in height and 100m spacing were daunting but completed in 9.36. This was followed by the pole vault – Coach Shannon Rapacchi has fitted in a couple of training sessions in the fortnight before and the reward was a new PB of 2m56. The final event the 1000m was completed in 3.02 min.

Bobby’s final point score of 3,386 saw him finish in 4th place – a great result as a first year U17.