News

After his good fortune in securing the club's extra London Marathon place this year, Christopher Westcott headed to Debden Airfield on Sunday 17th March to take on the Essex 20 mile road race. This was excellently organised by ATW and comprised of 5 flat laps, so ideal for practicing pacing strategies.

Chris was at the top end of his plan for the first lap but found a nice rhythm and was surprised to find himself getting slightly quicker each time. The outcome was a finishing chip time of 2:08:59 and a nice 5 minute PB, his first (and hopefully not last) since turning 50. Now he will hope to maintain this form through to the big day..

Photo courtesy of Mark Easton

Two SNHAC athletes were in action in Birmingham at the weekend.
Jess Astill ran 56.78 in her heat of the 400m.
In action in the para 60m U20 Rebecca Scott ran a personal best of 8.49 to secure the bronze medal.

Three SNHAC athletes were in action at Lee Valley on Saturday and Sunday.
Joylyn Saunders Mullins won her W70 200m in 35.71. Chris Feely was 2nd in her W60 800m in 2.58.2. John Mayor was 2nd in his M65 60H in 15.33 and he won his HJ with a clearance of 1m41.

It is with immense sadness that we have learnt of the death of Peter Lee. Peter was well known for officiating at all levels for decades and was a familiar figure at school, county and club events. His knowledge about the sport was invaluable and he will be greatly missed.

Our thoughts go to Janet and his family at this time.

Peter's funeral will take place in Letchworth on January 10th. Full details can be found at https://www.dignityfunerals.co.uk/funeral-notices/15-12-2023-peter-james-lee/

I hope that everyone has warmed up by now! There was a period in the day where it was really quite beautiful, the heavy frost everywhere and the sun, not warming you up, but peaking through a patch of blue sky….but that was about halfway through the men’s race, so not many got to experience that! Just seeing where you were going because of the fog was a challenge to the earlier starters, certainly for the spectators anyway, and yes that was ice in the standing water / puddles on the course!

It very much looked like the experience of last month’s race proved beneficial to our athletes. Their grit, determination and efforts go without saying (how impressive), but most seemed to be much happier with their own individual performances today which was brilliant. I think that anyone who got round deserves a medal, really well done.

Please see see the results page for a superb set of results once again. It is also notable how good our turnout is as a club, with far more runners at this stage of the season than for a very long time.

Final thanks need to go to those particularly cold volunteer marshals, who did the business at the furthest away point on the course. We really couldn’t have done it without you (and I am not even joking, some of us go to the Chiltern League AGM!!!)