Punching above our weight…..again.

On a wonderful day of competition at Pingles Stadium last Sunday our vets team finished in a superb 3rd place out of some 16 teams competing.

Having once again qualified for the A cup final we were able to fill all but a couple of the 67 events on the day. A magnificent achievement due in no small way to the efforts and arm twisting ability of team manager Hannah Osborne.

As has been stated on a number of occasions, in T&F it is vitally important to fill as many slots as possible because if you haven’t got someone competing in the event you will realise zero points, if you have, irrespective of the performance of the competitor you will earn points.

I competed in 4 events and came last in every single one but managed to get 14 points. The gap between us in 3rd place and home club Nuneaton in 5th place was just 13.5 points. My  performance included being out thrown by an 80 year old lady in the shot put. Slightly in my defence she is world champion in W80 shot. You win some you lose some!

As the graphic of the provisional results below shows, we scored 309 points to finish in 3rd place to equal our performance in 2021. In 2022 we slipped to 5th place and last year we were 4th. In both of those years I think we suffered through having to compete with other local races.

We were placed behind Worcester the overall winners and Rugby and Northampton Lions, just 8.5 points behind in 2nd place. When you think of the relative populations of the conurbations they represent against our own tow, it gives you some idea of our achievement. Also when you realise that clubs of the stature of Bromsgrove & Redditch, Birchfield and Royal Sutton Coldfield didn’t even qualify for the A cup final, I think we can once again say that we punched above our weight.

This despite the fact that in almost a 3rd of the events we had members competing in age groups lower than their own actual age group.

I do implore senior members that if you haven’t already, to give T&F a try, you really will not regret it. Once again, due to Hannah’s efforts, we had members giving it a go for the first time this season and I’m pretty sure everyone of them loved it and will be coming back for more next season.

So often I’ve heard statements such as “ I’ve not done x since school days” or “I’ve never tried that before” but with the quality of coaches we have in the club who are prepared to give freely of their time to give coaching lessons to those of all abilities, it really couldn’t be easier and as my woeful performances show, you don’t have to be that good to make a difference to the team’s performance.

As Ben Kruze states above in his report “For anyone who is considering taking part in Vets athletics and looking to join the teams in any way, I highly recommend it. Never worry about the end result and embrace the experience as it’s always very inspiring to watch athletes of all ages simply competing and doing what they love to do”

Before next season I believe there will be some taster T&F sessions, so why not give it a try ? The team spirit and camaraderie of these events really is second to none.

Cheltenham 10k & half marathon race report

Report – James Lake

The name of the game, as I worked out very quickly when warming up, was humidity – although the temperature was only in the low 20s, it felt horrendously muggy. If you recall my previous race report (a 10k back in July), this was the same conditions I faced last time I went for a 10k PB, so at least I knew what I was getting myself in for this time!

I’d only had a chance to have a quick look at the course beforehand: nice and twisty. I think these types of races suit me as it keeps me engage, and the fantastic crowd turnout (helped by the fact it’s a fully closed road course) helped keep spirits high. I even managed a few high-fives!

At around 6k, the pack that I’d settled into began to break apart, as the conditions caught up to us; I suddenly found it very difficult to get my pace below 4 minute kilometres. Thankfully, by this point, we’d met back up with the HM course, so I now had the motivation of picking these runners off one by one. However, this also meant that I no longer had any sense of where I was in the pack, as I didn’t know which race the runners around me were in. Top 10 felt out of the question, but top 15 felt achievable, so I pressed on. 

I can say, hand on heart, that I left it all out there on the final few kilometres, even with my pacing going AWOL. I crossed the (suspiciously short, by around 200m, I think) finish line in a chip time of 37:55, obliterating my previous PB, and earning me a shock 5th place!

Congratulations to the other SAC runners who took on the Cheltenham races. Unfortunately I’ve struggled to find everyone who ran as the results website has removed a lot of club names, but a couple of special shoutouts are due for the HM runners: U20 Tom Cox ran a 4-minute PB of 1:21 putting him in a fantastic 26th place and Andy Lawrence ran an unbelievable PB of 1:09.39 earning the silver medal, just 4 seconds off the top slot.