Another week, and another last cross country season race! This time the English schools event leading to some more brilliant Beagles performances. We also had an amazing evening on Sunday celebrating all of our athletes and handing out our club awards. The details are below.
English Schools Cross Country Final
Saturday saw the pinnacle of the English Schools cross country season with the national schools finals held at Pontefract racecourse. With five Beagles having qualified to run for Essex schools across all three races we knew we would be in for a great afternoon of running!
First race of the day saw Olivia Forrest and Evie Warn run with the intermediate girls over 3.54km. Olivia started the race confidently, running sensibly to join up with the front runners whilst Evie also pushed herself to those running at the head of the main pack. As the race unfolded, Olivia pulled away with another runner, then went into second before starting to close the gap on the first place athlete with a superb kick and final sprint; as she was drawing level, the other athlete fell and this saw Olivia take gold and the championship title! Evie also finished really strongly to finish 28th ensuring that the Essex team finished third overall.
Next up was Jude Hearn running as a junior boy over 3.18km. Jude had an incredibly strong start, storming out of the pen and placing himself in the amongst the leaders. He continued to run strongly throughout finishing as first Essex boy and 30th overall! His team also performed strongly in the competition for first eight team members to finish.
Summer Smith ran next in her first English schools appearance – also over 3.18k in the junior girls race. Commitment to the pace of the front group throughout and real determination to push herself saw her finish fourth overall, first in Essex and ensured her team second place!
Finally Max Sanderson, in the intermediate boys race, over 4.495km ran strongly in a tough field, pushing himself hard through the course to finish 75th.
Well done to all our Beagles who ran brilliantly today and to their Essex schools team mates! A particular congratulations to Olivia and Summer who have both qualified to represent England next week in Dublin at the SIAB International XC Championships. An amazing achievement for both of them.
Colchester Half
Huge congratulations to Scott Brooks who hit the streets of Colchester at the weekend for their half marathon as part of his London Marathon training. Finishing 35th overall (and 26th in his age category) in a new best time of one hour and 21 minutes and 58 seconds – we are pleased to see he is in brilliant form!
Scott will be running the London marathon on behalf of Children with Cancer and if you would like to sponsor him you can do so here
Beagles Awards
Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated with us on Sunday as we presented our awards and trophies for the 2023/24 season. It really was lovely to look back at so much success and to see all that has been achieved. Full citations for all awards have been emailed to members!
Congratulations to the following athletes:
| The Gemma Ox BBAC Merit Award | Mya Ngala |
| The Barrie Geater, BBAC Merit Award | Taylor Connolly |
| The Sean Gooch, BBAC Merit Award | Calum Manzi |
| The Bailey Geater, BBAC Merit Award | Isobel Larner |
| The Rob Trevor, BBAC Merit Award | Mara Thomas |
| The Daniel Esterhuysen, BBAC Merit Award | Jemimah Knightbridge |
| The Angela Hawkins, BBAC Merit Award | Ellie Gray |
| The Laura Durn, BBAC Merit Award | Matthew Jones |
| The Vicky Trevor, BBAC Merit Award | Robyn Colyer |
| The Marc Delea, BBAC Merit Award | Ronnie Marchant |
| The Neil Jones, BBAC Merit Award | Stephanie Smith |
| The Mark Smith, BBAC Merit Award | Ava Carter |
| BBAC Emerging Talent Awards | Evie Abbot Katie Lowe Oliver Trevor Lianne Esterhuysen Emily Brewington Dexter Jones Hollie Poyton Tobias Maitland Yvo Heidemans Scott Brooks Daniel Ayandare Nora Heidemans Elosie Pipe |
| BBAC Award for Achievement on Track – Female | Madison Kindler |
| BBAC Award for Achievement on Track – Male | Jude Hearn |
| BBAC Award for Achievement in XC – Female | Olivia Forrest |
| BBAC Award for Achievement in XC – Male | Preston Taylor |
| BBAC Award for Achievement in Field | Erin Delea |
| BBAC Award for Commitment on Track – Female | Nicole Hawkins |
| BBAC Award for Commitment on Track – Male | Frankie Edwards |
| BBAC Award for Commitment in XC – Female | Isabel Forrest |
| BBAC Award for Commitment in XC – Male | Louis King |
| BBAC Award for Commitment in Field | Dean Savery |
| The Paul Forrest BBAC Award for Athletic Endeavour | U15 Girls Relay Team – Evie Warn, Missy Tiller, Olivia Forrest |
| BBAC Female Athlete of the year | Olivia Forrest |
| BBAC Male Athlete of the year | Max Sanderson |
| BBAC Masters Athlete of the year | Stuart Crowther |
| Courage Cup for the Best Beagles Role Model | Daniel Jaycock |
| BBAC Chairperson’s Award | Evie Warn |
Parkrun and Junior parkun round up
Another weekend of superb performances around our local parkruns with lots of PBs to report. Starting at Hackney Marshes where Madison Kindler (18:11 PB) was once again impressing. Finishing 5th, and 1st female, Madison scored an age grade of 93.86%, and a strong improvement of 16 seconds over her last run there.
We had a large turnout at Raphael parkrun, with no less than 9 Beagles running. 1st home was Ollie Johnson (18:45 PB) who finished 6th overall and picked up a 42-second course best. In 14th was Jemimah Knightbridge* (20:30), closely followed in 17th by Lianne Esterhuysen (20:40 PB) who improved on her last run a couple of months ago by over 90 seconds! Laura Durn (20:41 PB) was also in great form, also securing a course and 5k PB while a couple of places behind her was Matthew Jones (20:48 PB), another Beagle to claim an event best. Rapidly improving Daniel Esterhuysen (21:02 PB) finished 23rd & scored another personal best, well over a minute quicker than his last effort here. There was more to come as Emily Brewington (21:58) proved her improving form by finishing 34th and clocking under 22 minutes for the first time at the event in 10 months. Aria Lily Sabado (22:48) enjoyed a fine debut at the 5k distance, finishing 44th while Dylan Hussain (23:41) finished 56th , less than 30 seconds outside his best.
Just the 2 runners at Chelmsford but more impressive performances. Missy Tiller (18:33 PB) ran superbly to finish 6th overall from 717 runners, securing a Parkrun best time by 42 seconds and scoring the best age grade of the day (86.07%). Adam Armour (20:36) also ran well, finishing comfortably inside the top 50.
6 more Beagles turned out at Brentwood taking on their winter ‘Beast’ course, an even hillier version of the regular route. Daniel Jaycock (20:49) was 2nd into the finish funnel, followed in 3rd by Matthew Delea (21:45). 11th place went to Hugo Wilks* (23:27), finishing 13th was Max Massarella (23:55), with Lorraine Massarella (26:44) coming 26th. In 57th was Erin Delea (32:21), now just 1 run short of her 200th parkrun!
Finally, over at an unusually muddy Wickford Memorial parkrun, we had 2 runners. Elliot Worth (19:35) finishing 4th overall and Scott Brooks (22:13) 17th, taking it easy ahead of his Colchester half the next day.
Once again, our junior runners had to endure another wet morning. At Lake Meadows, regular Sophie Bickerstaff (08:39) ran well to finish 5th while at Harrow Lodge, we had 3 runners taking part. Isabel Forrest (08:04) took 1st place with Oliver Trevor (08:35) not far behind in 3rd. Blossom Smith (09:02) finished 4th and 2nd female.
There was a great turnout at Hutton Rec. with no less than 13 Beagles taking on the rain and mud. Daniel Smith (08:21) finished 1st in a hard-fought tussle at the front of the run. Just a few seconds behind finishing 3rd was Jamie Murphy (08:28) while 5th place went to Ethan Wilson (09:10). 1st female went to Nadia Price (09:29) who finished 7th overall, Nora Heidemans (10:11) was 8th with Liam Worth (10:17) 9th. Camilla Nash* (10:26 PB) finished 11th, doing well to pick up a PB on a challenging day, while next in was Max Morris (10:55). Chloe Thomson* (11:05) finished 14th, Jessica Thomson* (11:07) 15th, Max Wilson (11:28) 17th, Joshua Barke (11:32) 18th and Joshua Thomson* (13:30) 24th.
Well done to all our runners this weekend. Note for parents, if your child has an * by their name, please help our editors by adding Brentwood Beagles as their club under their parkrun profile (groups). Feel free to contact us if you need help setting this up.
Coming up
Wednesday night sees a large number of Beagles back at Lee Valley for a middle distance open with events over 800m, 1500m and 3000m. As reported above, Olivia Forrest and Summer Smith are off to Dublin to represent England at the Schools International match. We wish them both great luck! Also next weekend the SEAA 5K U15/17 road championship takes place in Milton Keynes – fingers crossed for more success there. We were incredibly sorry to hear that the Year 7/8 schools intercounties cross country was cancelled – not the end to the season we were looking for!
