Nice to hear comments about our track facilities, the most common `Wow, have you seen the indoor area?” envy swept throughout those seeing it for the first time, felt quite proud of where we train but not so proud on how it’s managed! Complaints about the café and it’s positioned plus closing early. Think next time we provide hot drinks and ask for donations especially on a dark cold and wet night as this was. Thanks and gratitude goes to all our officials and volunteers who spent the night outside getting colder by the hour so that we could compete, they include Christine HR, Pauline, Barry, Siobhan, Kelsey, Carol-Ann, Peter, Peter (sorry for anyone I’ve missed out!)
Thanks to Susan Dixon for having to drop down to run as an `A’ string runner in both the W35 400m and 3000m, a respectable 4th place in both against some strong younger athletes, in her own age group she’d have come 1st twice!
Lisa Atkinson ran comfortable in the B string W35 400m still weary of causing an injury as done so in the past, hopefully the more races (for us vets!) the more confidence she will build.
Sally Carr also doubled up, in the W35 ‘B’ string 400m and 3000m only having a week or so back from illness. It was two 2nd and a 1st for Christine Bond in the W50’s 400m, 3000m and javelin. Jenny Agypong and Maria MacDonald also found themselves on the field with the javelin, off course all three are regular javelin throwers…. NOT! poor Maria is still suffering the effects of broken ribs and had to be sat on not to do the triple jump, she’d filled two gaps anyway, one in the W60’s 400m which resulted in her coughing holding her ribs! Think off to the doctors now Maria!
What happened in the women’s W50’s 3000m race? Well I saw the guy change the lap count from 5 laps to 3 laps as I was approaching and called out “What’s happened to 4?” I continued to shout out as I passed saying the lap count was wrong. I’m not an experienced 3000m runner but I was counting the laps down for sure! Next time I approached the lap counter said `2’, “That’s wrong!” I shouted, “I have 3 laps left” but although I know I was heard nothing came back, I’d just come up on our lovely Geraldine’s shoulder for Bexley, “You are right, I have 4 laps to go, it’s defiantly wrong, my watch say’s so too!” “So, we’ve both told them!” and apparently so had other runners which meant there was time to correct it because the leader hadn’t even had the bell yet. The girl in front speeded up hearing the bell, then it rang for me, “It’s wrong, I’ve 2 laps left not one!” The leader was now coming into the home straight and I could see she was finishing, then the next runner behind her stopped, and so on, as I came down I shouted out I still had another lap to go but was told to stop, reluctantly I did as other athletes walked towards me, they told me they knew it’s wrong but if we all stopped at 6 laps it would make it fair in terms of positions! The men’s race ended up just as messy, don’t quite now how they results ended, one man’s name three times in the results! I still remain grateful to anyone and everyone who gave up there evening to help out on this night.
To end, no surprise to finish 4th overall having missed some vital points in the triple jump but it was more important we kept our runner’s injury free for next time. Team spirit was as high as usual and lovely we had some of our Thursday night runners helping out. McDonalds was nice after too!
Please note we have two more matches in May, Monday 13th at Dartford and Friday 31st at Tonbridge.