Exbury Gardens 10k
Exbury Gardens 10k was run on a warm but breezy morning. Kieran McManus did extremely well to finish 66th out of a large field of 863 in a time of 44:38.
South-West Schools Combined Events Championships
Three of CoSARCs finest multi-eventers travelled to Yeovil to represent Wiltshire in this championship event.
Jacob Earle and Joseph Holme competed in the one-day, five-event Junior boys Pentathlon. The first event was the 80m Hurdles. Jacob ran a superb PB time of 14.07, despite having to run into a stiff headwind.
Joseph struggled to find his rhythm, but still ran a 16.33. In the shot putt and both boys did brilliantly we'll as they both threw lifetime bests, Jacob with 8.51m and Joseph 7.96m
In the Long Jump tricky windy conditions making hitting the take off board very difficult. Jacob jumped 4.51m and Joseph jumped a PB with 4.56m.
With the wind picking up even more, the penultimate event was the High Jump - again both boys scored PBs. Jacob with 1.50m and Joseph 1.41m.
Coming into the final event the boys both needed a big run - Jacob to score enough points to try and secure an automatic English schools qualifying position in 5th overall, and Joseph to run a 2.32 to hit the magical 1,600 points mark and make it onto the UK rankings list.
In Race One Joseph took on the pace from the off - leading through the first 600m. He hung on and finished in 2.27 to finish 11th overall with 1,653 points.
In Race Two Jacob put everything he had into distancing himself from his rivals and powered through to a 2.21. Following an agonising wait for the final results, Jacob scored 2,005 points to finish 6th. He just missed out on automatic qualification for the English schools qualifying position by 8 points. Jacob may still get one of the roll down places for top scorers following the six regional qualifiers. This was still a superb achievement from a boy in Year 8 competing alongside Year 9 boys. Checks are being made to ascertain if Joseph set a new club record !!!
Thomas Holme, the only representative for Wiltshire, was competing in the two day Intermediate Boys Octathlon against boys a year older than himself.
Thomas started with a Long Jump of 4.42m. This was slightly down on his best but a decent start in the testing conditions. This was followed by a big PB in the Discus of 18.34m.
In the Javelin a couple of solid throws in the first two rounds were eclipsed by a huge third round PB of 25.32m.
At this point Thomas was sitting in 13th place overall. In the quicker of the two 400m heats Thomas ran a very well measured race to clock 59.75, which moved him up to 9th in the overall standings at the halfway stage.
Day two started with the 100m hurdles, with Thomas running a superb 3 second PB to clock 18.02, and finish 2nd in his heat.
Again the windy conditions affected the performances of the athletes in the High Jump. Thomas still managed a decent jump of 1.44m. This was swiftly followed by the Shot Putt and an increase to his PB of 106cm to throw 6.84m.
All competitors lined up for the last event, the 1500m, and from the off Thomas led the way, pulling further and further away and winning in 5:00, ten seconds ahead of the next finisher. This result brought Thomas’s total to 2,775 points, a 424 point increase on his previous best, and gave him a 9th place finish overall in the SW Schools Combined events championships.
Endure 24 Reading
Amongst the 4,000 runners at Wasing Park this year were 24 from CoSARC who ran as solos or in teams for 24 hours at this gorgeous mixed terrain trail event on the outskirts of Reading. Much of the route is through woodland and includes a few hills, one of which is called 'Heartbreak Hill’. The runners were encouraged the whole way round, at all times of the day and night, by teams of enthusiastic volunteer marshals.
Although dawn broke hot on Saturday, by the time of the start at midday there was sufficient cloud cover to cool the eager runners down. Late evening showers cooled everyone down even more.
Every solo or team had different strategies and targets but ultimately, it was as simple as 'keep going’. It's called Endure 24 NOT Easy 24 for a reason, and the event certainly lived up to its name.
Below are the incredible mileages run by CoSARC members.
Solo Runners
Alison Stott 60 miles
Ash Cooper 55 miles
James Hassan 100 miles
Jon Greenhalgh 65 miles
Philip Smith 90 miles
Team Runners
James Mills 40 miles
Lee Syrett 40 miles
Matt Bosworth 40 miles
Charlotte Routledge 30 miles
Grace Cousins 30 miles
Jackie Hassan 25 miles
Katie Clements 30 miles
Anna Patrickson 35 miles
Chris Simm 40 miles
Richard Larcombe 35 miles
Richard Williams 35 miles
Steve Perry 35 miles
Charlotte Bourne 40 miles
Craig Murphy 35 miles
Peter Manning 40 miles
Steven Mitchell 45 miles
Barry Davies 40 miles
Fiona Klein 35 miles
Matthew Harris 35 miles
British Athletics Championships
In the British Athletics Championships 1500m Jaymee Domoney competed against a top class field that included Olympians Josh Kerr and Jake Heyward.
Parkrun PBs
Dave Gervais 19:09, Art Mitchell 19:41, Charlotte Ingram 19:47 PB by 20 seconds, Anna Patrickson 20:24 and George Sutton 20:38 all earned well deserved PBs at Salisbury parkrun.
Art Mitchell did the double when he also PB’d at Churchill Gardens Junior parkrun in a time of 7:24.
