Running and Athletics 2008

SMAC Summer Series 2008

Tittersworth 5th June - A pleasant Summer evening saw the first event of the season. Forty-five juniors aged 11 to 16 lined up for the start of the approximate 1.5 mile course a few minutes after 7:30. Some competitors like Becky, pictured left, were running in the junior event for the first time after moving up from the minis, others were seasoned "veterans" running in their last series before transfering to the senior race. Louise, in her second season, was starting as defending champion as was club mate Kyle (right). Kyle stormed ahead from the off and held a commanding lead throughout, leaving no doubt of his domination over the field despite the excellent performance of Jack, 2nd and winner of last Saturday's Wincle Trout. Louise held fourth place for the first half the race but slipped to a finishing poistion of overall fifth and first girl ahead of Steff. A few pictures here.  Results will be posted on the SMAC site when available.

Midlands Track Championships - Alexander Stadium, Birmingham, 24th -25th May

For her second appearance in 1500m track Louise ran up an age group in U15girls at the Midland Counties Championships. For the first time in a major competition she was faced with heats and unlike the day of the county championships it was cold, wet and a little windy. Louise was in the 2nd of the two heats. The first heat ran a very quick 1st lap and Louise was scared, but when all but the front runner went through the 2nd lap no faster than her target time, with many slower, she relaxed a little. For the first 300m of her heat Louise was at the back, but she stuck to her race plan and by the end of the third lap had moved into third place which she held to the end. In the final she also started at the back, but panicked a little and moved forwards maybe slightly too fast. After briefly edging into third place, she was pushed into fourth and the three front runners opened a significant lead. Louise held on to fourth place for almost two laps until about 1100m but then her too early burst had its effect and she couldn't hold off the challenge from behind and eventually finished in 5th in a time of 5' 03.12'', slightly slower than her heat time (and PB) of 5' 02.24''.  Day 2 results. Two of her club colleagues ran on day 1: Jon 1st in U17M 1500m and Kyle 5th U17M 3000m. Day 1 Results.

City Parks Grand Prix

Longton Park - 13th May.  Some good results for the club juniors with Louise finishing first girl in the Junior (and U13s) race running the 2km in 7'01'' with Lauren Hancock 3rd in U11 category and Molly Chataway 3rd in U15 category. Vinnie Martin and Steff Reeves won the 3K U17 race with Joy Hawley putting in a fine run to finish 2nd behind Steff. Some of the other  U17s chose to run in the senior race and  Andy Marsden did particularly well finishing in 12th overall position. Full results and photos of Senior race from Bryan Dale. Some photos of the juniors in the gallery.

Tunstall Park - 3rd June. An exciting race with all the leading girls running exceptionally well despite a start which saw some of them boxed in by an unwelcome bicycle. Louise finished first in 7' 07'' with Lucy Hayes (now running for Stoke) 2nd in 7'21'', halving Louise's winning margin from Longton, and Newcastle team mates Molly Patrick 3rd (7'24'') and Sophie Plant 4th (7'25'') battling it out to the line. For SMAC Lauren Hancock was first under 11 while Becky Higton was 3rd under 13. SMAC once again had success in the U17s race with Vinnie Martin leading home the boys and Steff Reeves clear winner in the girls race. Full results and photos of the Junior race from Bryan Dale. A few more photos here.

Staffs County Track Championships - Northwood, 10th May

Apart from the 800m at Wenlock and a few sprints while in the junior school, Louise had never run on the track but had always fancied it, so when asked whether she would like to enter the 1500m at the county championships (the longest race she was eligible for) she jumped at it. A few days before the race she went with her coach to have a trial run - the one and only time she ran the distance on the track before the actual race. Race day was hot and almost no breeze. There were only 5 girls in the U13s. Jade was there but on the track she is in the U15s category. Louise ran a steady race. She took an early lead which by the final lap was about 100m. Her time was 5' 5.1''. Not too bad for a first attempt. Louise was the only girl from the club but there were a number of young men and between them they came away with a host of medals including Jon Turnock 1st and Kyle Fowler 2nd in U17 1500m; Matt Clowes 2nd in U20M 1500m and Myles Barret (U23) 2nd in senior men 400m and 1500m. See full results: Men Women More pictures in the gallery.

Mow Cop Killer Mile - 24th April

Well, what to say? Louise ran up the killer hill in 8' 58'' and finished first girl in her event (school years 7 to 10) behind only five older boys. She posed for photos, collected her gold medal and was interviewed by the press. Will they publish anything? Her training partner Steph (year 10) had entered the club runners race by mistake not realising it was intended for adult runners and while Louise (a mere year 7) was occuppied with the press Steph was out beating the club ladies to win in a time of 10' 02''. Nice going girls. Two golds for the club.  Louise now had her eyes on a bigger prize - she had spotted an array of trophies and went to ask what they were for.  The conversation went something like this: "Fastest lady of the night and fastest man of the night." "Does that include the girls in year 7 to 10?" "Yes everyone who did the full mile" . "How am I doing?". "Why? Do think you might win?" "Might do". "Are you serious?" "Yes! how am I doing now?" They  took her name and went to consult the results in so far. "Oh, it IS you. Well there are a few more races yet, but well done so far" and one of the ladies said she'd keep her fingers crossed. Louise went to watch the other races. None of the ladies looked dangerously fast. She cheered on fellow club runners including her former teacher who finished 3rd in the adults' race (8' 24''). The first lady seemed a long way behind him. Only the veterans left.  She went back to the race HQ to collect the 3rd medal for "Sir". We sat down and waited. The veterans had finished, they were collecting their medals. Nothing happened. Eventually Louise went to ask again. The organisers had been looking around for the fastest lady. They remembered someone asking earlier but couldn't agree that it was Louise they had seen. Some had recognised her, others were looking for someone older. But she had won and she was presented with the trophy. At 12 years old, the youngest ever winner. Mustn't forget the boys. Matt and Mike ran with Louise and finished a few seconds behind her; Andy, who chose to run with the adult club runners rather than the "teens" finished well inside the top 10 making him well placed for future years. An excellent set of performances from the youngsters. Louise commended Andy who took charge of the warm-ups for the youngsters at the bottom of the hill and helped them keep warm while waiting for the delayed start.  Results from MCRA. (Pictures: Louise, Matt, Andy, Steph. Sorry Mike the photographer missed you). More pictures.

Inter-County Championships - Wollaton Park, Nottingham 15th March

Louise joined her team mates Jade Bird, Lucie Farrell, Lucy Hayes, Ellie Howat,  Kay Oakley, Mollie Patrick and Eloise Redfern at Wollaton Park to represent Staffordshire's  U13 girls in the Inter-county cross country championships. Depite forecasts of heavy rain, the day and, more significantly, the course were dry. The going looked fast and Louise was very nervous. Vests matched for size, numbers pinned, tags fitted, spikes screwed in, face paint applied, warm ups finished the team was ready for the race. After a slightly delayed start the girls were off. Louise was 2nd in the pen behind Jade, but as usual she appeared to go backwards at the gun and was one of the last Staffs girls to get going. By just past half way round she had recovered to about 25th place, slightly behind Jade. She continued to pull forward and with 500 metres to go had moved just ahead of Jade and into 19th position.  About 50 metres from home she was still in 19th place but by the line had faded slightly to finish in 22nd place with Jade a few seconds behind in 26th place.  Ellie (112) and Kay (169) completed the team counters while the other four also ran hard to push their competitors further down the finishing order. The team came home in 16th position out of the  40 counties that achieved a team score.  Well done to all the girls. Full Results. More Pictures

National Championships - Alton Towers 23rd February

Our club, Staffordshire Moorlands was organising the race, so although Louise had never run there or seen the course until the day of the race, it was the next best thing to being on home ground. She finally realises that she has some potential in this sport and told her coach that he must kiss her feet if she won. He offered to polish her toe nails too (if he's seen them he must have been confident she wouldn't win), but she was psyching herself up and making herself believe she could win. We arrived and all started well. She walked the course and noted the state of the ground, the optimum path, and the ups and downs, but then she saw the stall selling  National Championship hoodies and purchasing one and discussing the merits of the various colours (should she have pink or blue? pink, definitely - but which shade?) became her main priority.  But eventually she was in her kit and warmed up heading to the start line.   For a relatively experienced runner, you'd think she would know which way to face on the start line .... but no. She inists she was facing the right way when the gun went, but needless to say she had a bad start. However, she recovered quickly and was soon within the first 20. She continued to move up through the field and by half way round she was running strongly in 5th place but then lost several places on the steep hill. She complains that we think she is good on the hills but she doesn't agree. This, she said, was the 2nd time Jade passed her on the hill (See Staffs County Championships) and this time so did several others, five or six she said. From the top of the hill she battled on for the last kilometer and although she later said she felt as though she was standing still and couldn't understand why no one was passing her, she still looked to be running strongly. She couldn't have lost any more places and maybe she even recovered a few because she finished in 10th place with a time of 12 minutes dead for the tough 3.2km course. She was disappointed and thought she had a poor run, but her coach told her she ran well and she needed to acknowledge that on the day there were nine people, including Jade who was one of her targets, who ran better. For the club juniors, each with his or her own personal target, there were some successess and some disappointments. After her race Louise went off to make use of her discounted entry into Alton Towers theme park and didn't stay to watch the other races while we went to take our turn as race marshalls so there are not many race pictures although there are a few in the gallery.  Results from the English Cross Country Association.

Staffs Schools County Championships - 2nd February

The club juniors were split between two opposing teams today as they ran for their school districts, some Moorlands and some Stoke, in the Staffordshire Schools County Championships at Staffordshire University.  Louise, having recovered from her cold had a comfortable run and increased an early lead to take gold in the year 7 girls event ahead of Ellie Howat from Cannock Schools. Both girls are still too young for the English Schools event but fortunately both have been selected to represent Staffordshire in the Inter Counties. Lucie Farrell pushed herself hard in the year 8&9 girls race, battling to maintain third position until close to the end when with a final burst she sprinted ahead gaining another place to finish in silver medal position behind Jade Bird. Steph Reeves ran her usual, strong race moving gradually up through the field picking of the places one by one to finish in second place behind Kate Holt and comfortably take the silver medal. Pictures: left, Louise; right, Steph; below, Jade (blue and white), Lucie(yellow/green and Lucy (maroon with red T shirt). For more pictures see the gallery

Staffs County Championships - 5th January

Still suffering from a cold and irritating cough, it was a toss up wether Louise's legs were running as fast as her nose for the opening race of the year!! Yes it really is a gross as it looks. Although not on top form Louise was well rested after her disappointing run at Westwood and determined to qualify for the Inter-counties by claiming one on the first four places in the Staffs county championships at Lyme Valley. Uncertainty about the effect of her cold and memories of her accident here in October, Louise was very nervous as she arrived, but relaxed once the race started. After taking an early lead her lack of fitness showed on the hills and she was pushed into second place by a young lady from Cannock and Stafford with whom she had shared the podium at Uttoxeter last year. The Cannock girl pushed on, fighting hard and ran to a well earned victory. Louise took the silver and team mate Lucie the bronze. Star team runner of the day however must be Antonia who, urged on by the crowd of her supporters, put on a final spurt to gain one place a few yeards short of the line and so clinch the gold medal for the under 13s girl's team by one point.  Louise and Lucie expect they will be joined in the county team by  one or two of their friendly rivals from Newcastle AC who also turned in good performances, finishing second in the team event. In the other races Steff and Gina both finished 7th (U15 and U17 girls respectively) and the U17 girls took the team bronze. The U17 boys had 3 finishers in the first 7 but were held to silver position by a very strong Birchfield Harriers team. In U15 boys Jack Ross, finally shaking off injury, started the year well with  a strong 7th and Matt Clowes also had a brilliant race. More pictures in the gallery. Full results.

See also Running and Athletics 2005  2006 2007

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