Jen Writes:
For those that knew Will Smit, he was a South African who used to belong to the club and has since moved to Singapore. He and his wife Toni had a baby early on Saturday morning, 2nd April. She weighed 6.6 lb and is called Mia Rose.
Mia Rose
5am, 6am…. I didn’t have a clue what the time was when I got up, all I knew is that I had to ignore the fuzz in my head thanks to the 5 pints the previous day watching England destroy wales whilst the other England limply lost to Sri Lanka, and drag myself out of the door for the drive to Worthing for the 9am start / 8am start on the know where you are winter time clock.
It was abit like Sidcup 10 by the sea, 4 laps of West Worthing wasn’t the most inspiring of courses, coupled with quite a stiff breeze and lots of people to lap it certainly wasn’t an easy run. But you have to hold your hats out to the marshals who gave up their Sunday to stand infront of roundabout junctions etc, blocking cars until the last straggler has gone by for the 4th time!
London is scarily close now so not wanting to burn all my matches before the big race I took the first 5 mile lap easy in 7mm, and then ran each lap abit faster. The 10 mile split was 1:07 with the 2nd in 1:04 to finish in 2:11 and 18th place, I even got to practice my marathon finish pose (touch wood!!). At the end I waited for Steve Winfield to finish, he looked like he’d put a hard day in at the office as he crossed the line in 2:39, and was rightly chuffed to bits with his sub 2:40 effort, we even got to meet Jonathan Redman who it turns out was only just ahead of Steve.
| GunPos | No | GunTime | Surname | Forename | Gender | Cat | Team/Club | Chip Pos | Chip Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | 182 | 2:11:28 | Wilkens | Nolan | M | SM | BECKENHAM RUNNING CLUB | 18 | 2:11:26 |
| 126 | 446 | 2:39:08 | Redman | Jonathan | M | M50 | BECKENHAM RUNNING CLUB | 129 | 2:39:03 |
| 129 | 522 | 2:39:41 | Winfield | Stephen | M | M40 | BECKENHAM RUNNING CLUB | 132 | 2:39:09 |
Considering Paddock Wood wasn’t a Grand Prix race this year, there was a quite a good turn out of Beckenham Runners. Chris Minns had an excellent run despite some difficulties but did enough to get a superb PB. Richard aslo ran a stormer with a highly speedy 1:22:36, surely sub 3 is there for the taking at London. Ken Fancett managed a great sub 90 minute run, I also spotted that he took part in the low key undulating Selsdon Half Marathon the previous day running 90:35, considering recovery is supposed to take longer as you get older, thats a fantastic double.
Chris writes…I ran along in the third group until it was just me and the M&M guy left, then fell off the pace around 9 miles. I was a little over 10:40 at 2 miles, 35:45 at halfway. My hamstring/butt area was killing me pretty much from the first stride, I was fairly worried I wasn’t going to make it to the finish!
6 Chris Minns 1:12:35
67 Richard Selway 1:22:36
177 Ken Fancett 1:29:26
259 Peter Baksh 1:33:10
355 Paul Fletcher 1:36:33
504 Kate Marchant 1:41:17
651 Georgina Selway 1:44:34
744 Andrew Hinds 1:47:32
820 Nicola Howard 1:49:27
1645 Ruth Bunn 2:18:29
On Sunday the British half marathon record fell, sadly Mo Farah isn’t a member of Beckenham, but we do have a Stephen Farrar who was a part of a contingent of Beckenham abroad! Edgar showed the way round his hood at the Lisbon Half Marathon.
248 EDGAR SEQUEIRA 01:25:11
402 BEN CALASCIONE 01:29:50
732 MELANIE BURDETT 01:35:54
734 WILL WITHECOMBE 01:35:55
1020 PAUL FLETCHER 01:40:00
2427 STEPHEN FERRAR 01:52:36
2891 ANDY HINDS 01:56:34
2955 NICOLA HOWARD 01:57:02
And at Hastings, well done for completing one of the hardest 1st half’s to a half marathon there is!
1062 GILLIAN SELMAN 1:49:47
1394 RICHARD GREENLAND 1:54:25
1406 ANDREW REES 1:54:25
1978 MARTIN WARD 2:03:16
This weekend I took the place of Sophie and Anika’s usual long run partner Ben (while he was in Lisbon), and escorted them to Chingford for the Orion 15. Thanks to Sophies 10 year old who programed her cars inbuilt sat nav, we made it in good time to arrive in a parallel universe. A cricket ground club house doubling up as a race HQ… which also had problems with providing ladies with a hot shower(sound familiar?), ha, at least we have ladies showers. To be fair, it is only Orion’s temporary home while they build a new one…onto the race.
Have to say, the Orion 15 is my new favorite race! It had everything you could want, mud, bogs, trails, countryside, woods, roads…golf course..and hills, hills, hills and then a very steep hill at mile 11 which was enough to make you cry at the top and shuffle along like 9o year old who’s put their hip out. It was proper old school cross country only marked by saw dust. Running along the trails you could just imagine gentleman in their leather shoes and baggy shorts and vest whatever the weather running this race back in the good old days! With trail shoes weighing a ton with all the accumulated mud, it’s an achievement just to finish, so the plastic cup of champagne at the end was a really nice touch. And the cost of this great race…nothing. All they ask for is a donation. The only downside was a mini load of chavy t@%ts who ignored the marshals at a road crossing honking their horn at all the runners… but thanks to Orion and the marshalls, superb job.
| 27 | Nolan Wilkens | Beckenham RC | M | 1 | 48 | 10 | ||||
| 183 | Anika Jones | Beckenham RC | F | V 35 | 2 | 14 | 0 | |||
| 184 | Sophie Bishop | Beckenham RC | F | V 35 | 2 | 14 | 1 |
Anika and Sophie
The wait is over……..drum roll please….. March handicap results are out!
Overall points table to follow soon….Andy?
Beckenham at Knole Park
Beckenham descended on the picturesque Knole Park yesterday for the Sevenoaks Roatry 10k and came away with an impressive haul of loot (& toiletries). Congratulations to the prize winners below.
2nd lady,
Mel Burdett
1st FV45,
Helen Garrett
1st FV55,
Ruth Bunn
1st ladies team,
Beckenham: Mel, Helen & Gail
1st mens team,
Beckenham: Jim, Stuart & OK Chris.
Full results are now on the race website, latest Grand Prix standings to follow.
Winning ladies team
As the London Marathon draws ever nearer, there’s a plethora of half marathons to use for your build up races. So yet more half marathon news…
Milton Keynes
The capital of roundabouts held it’s annual Half Marathon yesterday, joining a running club is obviously paying off as some great times were posted.
104: Simon Harris 1:26:30
501: Paul Fletcher 1:40:12
702: Alice Langton 1:43:24 (11 minute PB!)
The City of Norwich Half Marathon
This race was cancelled last November when it snowed and rearranged for yesterday. The route isn’t actually anywhere near Norwich, but held out in the sticks around the Norfolk show ground. The common perception is that Norfolk is really flat, but somehow the organisers have found long gradual inclines, that go straight up into the wind down open and exposed country lanes. Just so the race isn’t too easy! I started off with high expectations and set off with the optimistic aim of 78 minutes, but very quickly had nothing in my legs so staggered around in 85 minutes and 55th place. Not a good day at the office, but then I have been ill recently…(getting in my excuses).
If you believe the reviewers of runnersworld you’d think the only important thing about a race these days is the post race goody bag and medal. On this front the race scores a 10 out of 10, a canvas bag, bottle of water, redbull type drink, nutri grain, haribos, snicker, banana, badge and a balloon!….
55: Nolan Wilkens 1:25:01
Results are in from the Kent League, congratuations to Mel for finishing 3rd overall vet, and Anika for 5th overall vet…. and Beckenham Ladies finishing a fantastic 4th overall. The men fared not so well, but were able to get a team out thanks to Wills efforts so creditability wasn’t lost with an overall finish in 8th place. Hopefully there won’t be so many fixture clashes next year, so more people will want to get involved….including myself in that (ahem)
All the results can be found here Kent League 2010-11
Athletics Weekly have recently been running a regular Best of Brits ‘where are they now’ type feature based on all time UK track and field rankings. Mentioned alongside Olympic greats Kelly Sotherton and Denise Lewis……what happened to Britain’s 51st best ever long jumper? The answer lies in the AW article attached 🙂
How cool is that!
