4 December 2022
- Valencia Marathon, Spain
Great conditions saw four Blackheath and Bromley
athletes putting in good performances at the Valencia Marathon at the
weekend with Scott Overall on pacing duties helping Bojana Bjeljac to a new
Croatian National record and Giovanna Epis to the third fastest time in
history by an Italian women, both of whom gained world championship
qualifying times.
Of the members competing Blair Wilson came in first in
2:38:58 securing his London Championship place after messing up his pacing
at london by 90 seconds. the cost for this mistake is around £11 per second,
having to go to Spain to get the job done.
Fintan Parkinson, agonisingly close after experiencing
serious cramps in the last mile came home with a great time of 2:40:58, not
what he wanted but in great shape and plenty of marathons next year to
provide Fintan with sub elite qualifying opportunities.
Paul Sharpe just making the start after some bag drop
issues recorded 3:00:09 to round off the trio, all finishing quite close to
each other, again so close to that sub three but a great run nonetheless.
Beers and tapas followed before some recovery and back
to the winter men's season.
Up the Heath,
Blair
24 September 2022 - SEAA Road
Relays, Aldershot
This year saw the southern relays split between
Crystal Palace and Aldershot, Blackheath opting to enter the latter, putting
themselves against a very competitive and in parts elite and professional
field, which saw the British 10k champion only managing the fifth fastest
leg of the day and which went to established international athlete Jack rowe
in 17:30.
After a great effort from all the team managers across
the club, Blackheath managed to field well over 30 teams this year and
managed three team medals across a varying age range from under 13s up to
senior men’s.
The senior men managed to field a strong team this
year led out by the ever impressive Miles Brown who ran 19:56 for the second
fastest Blackheath leg of the day coming in around the middle of the pack
pitting against some of the best in the best in the country running the
first leg.
Daniel Kennedy then put in a very impressive stint of
20:06 moving a further two places up the order handing over to George Shaw
solidly maintaining position with a 21 minute leg despite nursing an ankle
injury, Blair Wilson and Micah Evans both overcoming physical problems (and
age) managing to move past a further seven teams each, running 20:26 and
20:02 respectively before handing over to 'first on the sheet' Angus
Harrington for the anchor leg, runing the fastest time of the day in 19:47
and bringing the team home in 31st out of around 80 teams including some of
the very best runner in the Uk.
The senior women made up of Lilly Meers, Kate Price,
Isabella Louth and Ashley Pearson put in a great performance coming in 33rd
with the times of 26 minutes 13 25:33, 26:08 and 24;56 respectively.
This brings us on to the younger side of the
tournament and 1st to be mentioned with a fantastic team gold in the under
17 category were Liberty Whyte, Carys Firth and Fleur Todd-Warmouth who also
ran the second fastest overall leg of the day in 15:52 on the shorter
course, with the other girls placing in the top 16 in a field of nearly 100.
Another team of Megan Slattery, Olivia Magee Brown,
and Millie-May Collins-Smith coming in a very respectable 16th and Molly
Shaw and Islay Pearson also running strongly for a another Blackheath and
Bromley team in that category; a great turn out.
Just one team in the under 17 boys, but Arthur Starvis,
James Barnes, and Jasper Brooks showed true grit coming home in 20th place
overall.
In the under 13s; Rowan and Freya pearson and Abby
Lee, proved a handy trio coming in 23rd place while the boys; Harry Collins,
Daniel Hogan and James Shaw gallantly won up a team silver with times of
10:49, 10:46 and 10:57 respectively. All coming in the the top 16th in a
field of 100. Lots to come from this group in the future I'm sure.
Another good turnout in the under 15s with Megan
Barlow, Lydia Witcombe and Luciana Smith brilliantly placing in the top 10
and Isabel Pauline Leah Kyriacou and Beth Regan coming in 26th.
Another fantastic team medal in the under 15 boys with
Lucas Elmqvist, Joseph Hill and Joseph Scanes coming in second place
overall; again in a very tough field, with Joseph and Lucas running exactly
the same time which was the fourth fastest overall on the day of 9:42,
Joseph's time of 1008 was just outside the top 20 in a field of 150+.
A great turnout in this age category saw Jed Starvis,
Henry Verster and Ben O'Grady place 29th and Connor Wray, Alex Martin and
Sam Barlow coming in 47th in a big and very competitive field. Also running
strongly on his club debut was Kyle Firth running a leg of 11:31.
Just a quick reminder that all the club fixtures are
on the website now for the winter season. Please reach out to any of the
relevant age group managers for cross country - all details on the website.
You may notice that the senior men’s report is a
little more detailed this is only because I manage that team with a few
others, thank you to Paul Austridge for providing me with the info on the
younger age groups and if anyone ever has anything to add to these reports
for their non-senior men’s feel free to WhatsApp or email me.
Up the Heath,
Blair
4 September 2022 - The Big Half - London
Full results
15 May 2022 - Chislehurst
Half-Marathon - Chislehurst
Full results
23 April 2022 - British Masters
M35 6 stage Road Relay, Sutton Coldfield Park
Team 5th and individual gold
A great outing for Blackheath and Bromley at
the Men's M35 British 6 stage road relay championships on Saturday 23rd
April with a welcome return to club duties for Scott Overall saw a high
place finish and an individual medal for the club.
On a scenic but hilly 5.1k circuit around Sutton
Coldfield Park and nature reserve, with over 200 feet of elevation nearly
all in the first 2 kilometres, and a strong headwind on the back straight,
the ever dependable Fintan Parkinson was off first, producing a very strong
leg of 17:26 putting us in a good position and setting a benchmark for the
rest of the race with some teams we had eyed as close rivals heavily front
loading their batting order.
On a course that was unanimously agreed to be 50
seconds slower than a Bromley parkrun, two of Blackheath's fastest were off
next with Roger Vilardell coming back from an injury to run 17:18 and Micah
Evans capping off a fantastic long-distance season in 17:08, both overtaking
several runners moving up now into 11th place, closing the gap and starting
to real in our southern rivals also.
Next up was the day's team captain and organiser Alex
Gibbons coming home after a strong shift following two weeks rest in 17:52.
Although not what he wanted, this would have still equated to around 16:46
for a Norman Park 5k. He dug deep holding off strong competition from some
of the northern teams, crossing the line still in 11th place handing the
proverbial baton for the penultimate leg to Blair Wilson who although not
essentially one of Blackheath's top choices for this distance looked
handsome nevertheless taking another place and eating into Tonbridge's lead
over us by another 20 seconds for the un-official Southern Crown. Crossing
the line in 18:04 he handed off to former Olympian Scott Overall, the team
now in 10th position.
What happened next was great to watch as Scott put in
a lighting shift of 15:29, moving up the field to finish in a very
respectable team 5th with the last scalp being Tonbridge who ended up 6th in
a very tough field 3 hours from home.
We hung around for the medal ceremony hoping to spot
one of the top 4 teams wearing illegal trainers all to no avail consoling
ourselves with a Gold medal for the club after Scott was awarded the fastest
individual time of the day, closely contested over long time rival John
Beattie, from Leeds Athletic club.
Up the Heath!
Blair Wilson
