The first EMAC League match took place at Milton Keynes on Wednesday 10 May, and everyone travelling over through the torrential rain was, I’m sure, ready for a thoroughly wet evening, but the clouds broke and the sun shone.
For Bedford and County AC the evening started well with ‘new Masters’ Darren Kerr (M50) and Glen Kerr (M45) taking first place in the hammer, and on the track Adam winning the 1 mile walk.
The weather was a far cry from the miserable rain we experienced at the Norwich meet two weeks ago, which made for better running conditions.
We had a number of first timers competing on Sunday, a big well done to them, it must have felt very daunting for you, but everyone tried their best! There have now been lots of personal bests set, so there is now a benchmark to work on for future events.
The competition in the YDL is very tough, but all of the boys worked very hard and should be very proud of getting stuck in. We had a number of personal bests
On a much warmer and drier Sunday than our first match we competed in the first YDL at Bedford. This was a tough competition for the youngest members of our club as we were up against very strong U13 & U15 teams from Brighton, Cambridge Harriers, Crawley, Herne Hill and Woodford Green. To their credit the athletes battled very hard in every event they took part in.
The girls had 6 first time athletes, 31 personal bests and 5 season’s bests. Our only A string win came from Serena in the U13 800m in 2.27.89, nearly 5 seconds clear of second, not bad for a debutant race!
There was a convincing win for Ben Davies in the night's fastest 1500m at the Watford Open Graded Meeting on Wednesday 3rd May. Ben made up a lot of ground on the leader in the last lap and then kicked away with 200m to go to win in 3:57.12. Jamie Webster finished fourth in 4:00.14. Daniel Toner (U17) ran the fastest 100m of the night in 11.76 seconds.
There were some excellent performances at the Bedfordshire AAA & Hertfordshire AAA 1500m Championships in Stevenage on 1st May. There was a win for Imogen Chesterton in the Under 20 Women's event, and medals for Harry Scott (Under 15 Boys), Eleanor Smith (Under 15 Girls), and Lily Farr (Under 17 Women). Well done to all those who took part.
Thalia Mason won the Boston Pentathlon with a score of 2794 points in her first outing as an U17. She set a PB of 7.84m in the shot and cleared 1.56m in the high jump only 2 cm shy of the lifetime best. Her long jump of 5.21m was also a standout performance. Meanwhile on the other side of the country, Stephen Simmons was winning the Somerset Senior Decathlon – his first foray into the senior ranks. Using it as preparation for the England Championships at the end of May he scored 6317 points, his highlights being a PB of 50.90sec in the 400m, an equal PB of 1.80 in the high Jump and a vault of 4.10m only 10 cm shy of his recent personal best.
Congratulations to Lyla Danobrega, who broke her own club Under 17 and Senior Women's 1500m Steeplechase record on Saturday 29th April at the West Suffolk Steeplechase Festival with a time of 5:21.00.
Well done to Craig Emmerson on a victory in the Turing 10k at Milton Keynes yesterday - Craig's time was 32.13.
Lyla Danobrega (U17) and Euan Supple (U20) both turned in excellent performances at the Steeplechase Festival at Bury at Edmunds on Saturday 29th April, with both athletes well inside the English schools qualifying times. Lyla broke her PB for the 1500m Steeplechase with a time of 5:21.0. This is provisionally a new club U17 and overall record for the event. Euan front ran his 2000m steeplechase from gun to tape to win by over 4 seconds in a time of 6:14.7 Lyla and Euan's excellent early season form puts them both in the top 5 in the uk rankings for their age groups.
