A few Tonbridge Athletic Club members posted some early new year performances, both indoors and outdoors this week, including two age group records being broken.
The New Year Indoor Open Meeting took place at Lee Valley, on Sunday, with mainly Tonbridge sprinters in action. Steve Daly (photo) showed that he had fully recovered from a recent bout of Covid to break the Tonbridge over 50 men’s indoors 200 metres record. He ran 27.38 to shave 0.12 seconds from Jason Cannon’s five-year old mark. Daly was also only 0.03s away from his own 60 metres record, set in December, as he recorded 8.38.
All the other sprinters present doubled up over both 60 metres and 200 metres, with under 17, Joe Stone running 7.55 for the shorter distance before setting a Tonbridge AC record of 23.36 over the longer distance. This removed Will Grist’s under 17 age group record from the books, which had been set in 2008. The time was also faster than Stone’s outdoor best, which bodes well for the year ahead.
Ethan Tasker, who is in the under 20 age group is also in good form, recording 7.35 for 60 metres and then 23.22 as he made his indoor debut at 200 metres. Lucy Tallon (under 17) ran 7.86 and then an indoor pb of 25.73, whilst Harriet Medlen ran a 60 metres pb of 8.01 and 26.27 for 200 metres, in her first indoor experience at the longer event. Pandora Banbury had her first ever race on an indoor track and ran 2.24.06 for 800 metres.
Outdoors, a few traditional new year races took place, with James Kingston winning the Penshurst 5 miles multi terrain event on Sunday, by more than four minutes. Nick Barrable took the over 40s, first prize home, finishing 3rdoverall, whilst Mark Bridger was the first under 18 runner home in 15th. On New Year’s Day, at the Lamberhurst 10k, Mark Pitcairn-Knowles finished 5th, whilst Sasha Humphries was a close 2nd in the women’s race. On New Year’s Eve, over in Lough, Ireland, Lucy Thompson finished 41st in the 5 mile road race in 30.37.
Most of the Tonbridge AC distance runners have been training hard over the Christmas period in preparation for the events to come, with the Kent Cross Country Championships taking place at Brands Hatch this coming Saturday.