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March 2016
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SEAA Road Relays
Excellent news in from the South of England Road Relays, where our teams took on the absolute best clubs in the south to challenge for SEAA honours and qualification for the Nationals. The men's twelve-stage event, over alternating 7.2km and 4.8km legs, saw three C&C teams in action, earning 10th, 25th and 31st places - astonishingly good, I'd say, in quality and depth. A roll of honour for our "A" team stars who qualified to take on the rest of England - we salute you Ollie Park, Kieran Wood, Chris Darling, Tim Cobden, Ross Tennant, Matt Slater, Jack Bowden, Nick Beer, Ally Hodges, Jonathan Escalante-Phillips, Patrick O'Hare, and Alex Eggeman. In addition, Kieran was the third-quickest of all runners on the short leg.
I've saved the best 'til last though - over their six-stage event, our female "A" team, Katy Hedgethorne, Charlie Christensen, Becca Frake, Vicky Knight, Clare Wilson and Susannah Reid, took a mind-blowing second place. This is one of the best results C&C has ever had in anything ever, and huge congratulations are in order. Needless to say, they're off to the Nationals too. Well done also to the "B" team, 27th place for them.
A round of applause to all 48 C&C runners, plus proud coaches and supporters. Take a look at the results for full details (thanks to my mystery correspondent for the epic data entry).
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Frostbite League - BRJ
Another Frostbite season has come to an end, with the BRJ club's romp around Hinchingbrooke. No more until the days start to shorten again. All appropriately spring-like it was too, once the sun had burned though the mist and the early chill had drained away. Our hosts had a late panic with flooding on the usual course, down where the lakes could no longer confine themselves (the parkrun was cancelled on Saturday), but a quick re-routing and we were in business. Many thanks to the BRJ team for saving our last hurrah. The alternative version contained all the elements you'd want though, with grass, hills, trails, road, a water splash, lovely scenery and, above all, some high-quality filth. Those, plus a couple of U-turns and an unsolicited extra half-mile all contributed to the unimpressive times, but the quality of racing was undiminished.
Both of our teams were quorate this month; our junior squad of Miles Benyan (ever-present this season and first C&C again), Joseph Wheeler, Matthew Pinney, Emma Stephens and Ruby Buchan battled out a twelfth-place finish, for thirteenth overall, but a bit of luck and one or two more teammates would have seen them well up in the top places this year - they can be very proud. The oldies weren't exactly flattered by the maths on the day either, but ninth place for a season's ranking of eleven represents an improvement on Frostmageddon '14-'15. Michael Moore capped an increasingly excellent season by claiming an eye-catching seventh place, and Ellie Swire was similarly epic, matching her season's best placing; fifth female. Huge congrats to both, and to Andy Gardiner too - sixteenth on début. Oliver Johnson and Andy Howard both finished in the top 100, and no doubt Al Pritchard would have too, without the generous head-start he gave us. Thereafter, and running rather nicely in varying states of physical repair, team stalwarts (there is no other word) Ben Chamberlain, Mike Brentnall, Isabelle Lemasson, Neil Costello, Carmel McEniery and me. A high-five to Carmel, taking it super-carefully, but back in the C&C vest after a pretty miserable year out, and thanks once again to team manager Adam Poole for his tireless efforts this season.
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Social Tuesdays!
We're hoping to start some informal pub evenings after our Tuesday sessions. If you fancy a drink, snack and a matter, show your interest here and we'll pick a venue!
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Upcoming Track and Field Events
The Cambridgeshire AA T&F championships are on 14th May at Peterborough, with the 3000m championships on the evening of May 25th, the 3k steeplechase on June 22nd, and the 2k and 1.5k steeplechases and the County Mile, on July 20th (all Wednesday evenings at St Ives)
To enter the championship events you need to send in your entry before May 3rd (or at least a week before the other dates).
The open events at St Ives can be entered in advance or on the evening
You can find the entry information and links to entry forms for the County championships and the Open meetings at
http://www.cambridgeandcoleridge.org.uk/index.php/track-and-field/league-information
or at
http://www.cambsathletics.org.uk/cambs-a.a.t&f-events
There is a small fee payable for entry to these events, and athletes must enter themselves (ie not club entries)
Normally the club athletes do very well at the championships (which also include club team trophies - last year we won 8 of the 10 age-groups)
Please enter if you can - we normally expect about 200 club athletes to enter the main championships.
Do it sooner thater than later before you forget!
Regards
Noel (T&F coordinator)
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Rhayader Round the Lakes 20 Miles
This very hilly road race in mid Wales is a firm favourite of 3 of us who have run it several times, and last Saturday saw us tackling it yet again, in my case for the 8th time after missing the last 3 occasions.
This must be one of the toughest 20 miles races around, such that many experienced runners reckon the effort required is equivalent to a marathon.
An overnight sprinkling of snow preceded a chilly afternoon race, and our 3 miles run up a mountain through an enchanting landscape was rewarded halfway down the other side by a viciously stinging but thankfully short hail shower. That didn’t dampen our spirits since throughout the race we were running through wonderful scenery. Katie must have been inspired because her training race resulted in a category win and 2nd female, whilst Darren was having an amble to finish about 1/3rd down the field. I must have spent too much time admiring the countryside because I only just scraped under 3 hours, nearly 20 minutes slower than my course PB.
Here’s to next year.
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Cambridge HM An Alternative View
Lots of us ran last Sunday’s 5th holding of our local half marathon, and I’m sure you all have your own views and memories of your time, but I’d like to offer a different perspective that most of you won’t have.
For the 4th consecutive year I ran as a 2 hours pacer, with others running at 1:30 and 1:45, so what was my view? Apologies to a few of you who may have read a similar version elsewhere.
Like each of many others I’ve spoken to since, I really liked the one lap course, the organisation was excellent, and the marshals, spectators and various helpers were superb. We’ve now got a half marathon which is a credit to Cambridge.
[race report]
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