Photo – Chris Olley after the Monterey Half Marathon and his TAC club record
As the weekend drew to an end in England, over in the USA, Chris Olley, of Tonbridge Athletic Club, was racing at the Monterey Half Marathon in California. A very early race start of 7am on Sunday didn’t prevent Olley setting off at a pace faster than five minutes a mile, which he maintained to the finish, placing 10th in 64.53. This set a new Tonbridge AC club record and was the first ever sub 65 minutes run for the distance by a club member..
On Saturday, the club had teams at the Kent Cross Country League fixture at Danson Park, near Bexleyheath, but were severely depleted due to a fixture clash. More than forty of their young athletes were running for their schools in the regional round of the English Schools Cross Country Cup.
Annabel Carter ran a well-judged race to place 4th in the women’s race, with Harriet Woolley (5th) and Nichola Evans (11th) scoring for the team. Their total points score gave them 2nd place behind Blackheath on this occasion, which is the position of the two squads going into the final league fixture in February. In the six to score contest, Tonbridge also missed out to Blackheath, with just one point separating the two clubs.
Isaac Arnott won the combined under 17 and 20 men’s race over five kilometres, sitting with a lead group of three for most of the race, before building a lead in the last kilometre to win by nine seconds. Angus Currie and Adam Jeddo had strong runs to finish 3rd and 7th, respectively, with the team 2nd. Ella Ayden was the only Tonbridge runner in the under 20 women’s race and finished 8th.
Yet another team to finish 2nd was the under 17 men, as Thomas Beghein (11th), Dan Jeddo (14th) and Mark Bridger (18th) scored. Alfred Everitt led the under 15 boys home in 11th, with the team severely depleted by absentees. Millie Watts (9th) and Neve Raymond (10th) both made the top ten of the under 15 girls’ race, whilst Isabel Gowing (7th) and Purdey Hutchings (8th) did similarly in the under 13 girls’ event. Oscar Cowling had possibly his best race to date when he finished 11th in the under 13 boys’ race.
The highest quality cross country event of the weekend was at Milton Keynes, where the second of the UK Cross Challenge Series took place. The senior men’s and women’s races were packed with international and national class runners. James Kingston had his most impressive performance to date in such an event, finishing 7th, with Alasdair Kinloch 43rd and Miles Weatherseed 100th. Imogen Amos was 49th in the women’s race.