Teens on Track Too

Last evening six more of our Teens, including one Junior, competed in the last C&CH Midsummer Games Open Graded meeting at Blackridge, Gloucester:

Alice Averies, Ben Conway (second claim), Lewis Jones, Niall Bagot, Toby Conway and Tom Hoskins.

For some, Alice and Lewis it was their first expereince of a proper non-schools athletics meeting and they had mixed experiences. Alice was so startled by the retort of the starter's pistol that she started her 100m by nearly falling over!

There was a good set of performances:

Ben (U15) and Toby (U13) both achieved PBs in the mile in conditions favourable for endurance runners: cool, damp and no wind. Toby's performance is "equivalent" to an EA PB Awards Level 1 standard and Ben's was Level 2.

Niall's (left) U15 100m was also a PB standard, level 1.

There's no PB Awards for Under 11s but Alice's run was for experience.

Tom (U15) ran the 300m and 100m and was by his high standards a bit pedestrian in both, probably due to a sore back from an accident earlier in the week, but his 300m was still a Level 5 EA PB Award and his 100m a Level 3.

The performance of the night has to be Lewis's (U15) 400m. This was Lewis first proper track meeting (he's only competed in school events before) and he was quite nervous, especially when he found that he was the youngest in the field by 4 years. However, he executed the race plan perfectly, running fast for first 100m (overtaking the field) and cruised down the back straight before driving (from the arms) round and off the bend. He held it together in the last 100m to finish second in sub-56s breaking the age Club record set in 1988. There's no PB Award for U15 400m, but his performance is a level 5 at Under 17, so probably equivalant to a U15 level of 8 (out of 9). He's only 0.5s slower than Archie Hatt's U17 400m record. With Lewis, Archie and Tom all running at their best, we could have some interesting training session "races' over the summer!

RESULTS (in order of event)

300m Tom Hoskins 3rd 42.53

400m Lewis Jones 2nd 55.73 (CR)

Mile (C) Ben Conway 2nd 5:35.45 (PB)

Mile (E) Toby Conway 9th 6:23.58 (PB)

100m (A) Tom Hoskins 7th 13:34

100m (E) Niall Bagot 2nd 13:91 (PB)

100m (G) Alice Averies 5th 18.09