News

Training will take place as usual on Sunday 1st November, Monday 2nd November and Tuesday 3rd November. We are waiting an update from England Athletics as to what will happen from Thursday. We will update this page as soon as we can.

If you attended our March 2020 induction session, are in Yr 7 and above and wish to resume your 4 week trial can you please contact us. Thank you

The club were saddened to hear this week that Vaughan Taylor had passed away. Vaughan was a former chairman of Watford Harriers and a highly experienced coach. He was a familiar face to all those attending athletics fixtures across the county and beyond. Our sympathise goes to Vaughan's family and all those at Watford at this sad time.

Since the soft start back at the track on the 3rd September with just two groups working through the new procedures, the Club will see all squads back in action once a week when the Disability Squad start their winter training. Every event squad athlete is now being offered one session a week by invitation only. The younger athletes are being offered one session a fortnight, but we are hoping to increase this later in the Autumn. This process will carry on with every athlete being offered their sessions a month at a time. So please check emails (including the junk box) as October’s invites will be going out in the next week or so.

We are all getting used to cleaning as we train – hurdles, young athlete’s equipment, throwing equipment and the jump beds. Stevenage Borough Council have kindly ordered the specialist cleaning equipment needed for the high jump and pole vault beds. The Club are funding spray disinfectant for equipment and hand sanitiser for athletes, parents and coaches. The need for regular hand and equipment cleaning is likely to be a necessity throughout the winter and the club is very grateful to those athletes, parents and coaches who are already providing their own personal hand sanitizer.

Thank you to those parents who are letting us know if an athlete is ill and cannot take a training slot.

We are continuing to keep squads separate and regulating the numbers in each group to ensure social distancing is maintained within squads and the squad ‘bubbles’ stay separate.

Athletes who fancy some Autumn competition should have a look at the list on the England Athletics website. These are often event specific or have just a few events only. Currently the first cross country race in the Chiltern League has been cancelled and no decisions have been made about indoor competitions.

After a five month wait athletes from SNHAC have finally been able to resume training at Ridlins Stadium, Stevenage. Lock down and water supply problems have seen the stadium closed for a prolonged length of time. Athletes returned to training on Thursday albeit under very different conditions. Small groups working in ‘bubbles’ and by invitation only are now looking forward to a hard winters work!

Sunday saw the opportunity for some Club athletes to find out what sort of shape they were in after the summer training in parks and gardens. Herts Phoenix held a limited events Open at Wodson Park, Ware on Sunday featuring 200m, 400m, 800m, High Jump and Javelin.

Four members took part in the 200m – U17’s Jacob Kinchin-Smith and Jamie Joseph ran 24.1 and 24.73 respectively while U15 Calum Fairey (25.5) and U13 Wilf Page (31.5) both ran personal bests.

In the 800m there was a season’s best for V45 Chris Westcott 2.11.9, and a personal best for Calum 2.16.8. U15 Imogen Rose ran a season’s best 2.42.9 and for U13 Matthew Thompson 2.46.3 was also a personal best.

In the Field Events U17 Ed Laws equalled his high jump personal best clearing 1m75, Senior Moe Sasegbon 1m65 and Jamie Joseph 1m55, while U13’s Toby Hales 1m15 and Eve Farmer 1m - both recording personal best clearances. U20 Georgia Shephard - Gazely threw a personal best of 35m73 in the javelin.