Two big events this week saw some brilliant Beagles performances both indoors and in cross country. For our indoor athletes it was a great opportunity to set a benchmark to attack at some of the other upcoming indoor events over the next few months. A reminder that the Essex indoor championships is open on Roster and we would love to see our Beagles taking part there.

Renfrew Cross Challenge

A long trip to Glasgow on Saturday for the latest round of the prestigious cross challenge series of cross countries in Renfrew proved very worthwhile for our U15 girls.

A beautiful calm morning saw great conditions for running and with the course a flat one of two laps there was lots for the spectators to watch.

Congratulations to Olivia Forrest who added to her two cross challenge victories in Cardiff and Liverpool with another dominant victory today finishing first by 33 seconds in 13:28.

Evie Warn ran strongly and battled the chasing group to outperform her Cardiff cross challenge finish and ended up 5th – 14:21. Isabel Forrest also showed improvement from her Liverpool cross challenge with a good run to end 26th – 15:18.

Well done to all three – great to hear the Beagles name make it’s Scottish debut too!

SEAA Indoors

Two busy days of athletics this weekend at Lee Valley Athletics Centre for the South of England Athletic Association Championships saw some brilliant personal best performances and a gold and bronze medal for the Beagles!

The first of the big indoor events of the year, the Southern championships, saw a number of our Beagles compete all with their own personal goals and ambitions in mind. On Saturday Evie Abbot made a strong start for the club, competing as an U15 for the first time and achieving a PB in the 60m hurdles of 10.80. Evie also sprinted over the flat 60m picking up another PB of 9.02. Later in the day, Ava O’Neal ran well over 800 metres to finish 4th in her heat with a time of 2:57.34. Madison Kindler also ran the 800m and achieved a new PB in her heat of 2:24.45 to finish first, by some margin, qualifying her for Sunday’s final.

On Sunday our sprinters again started the day strongly. The 200m heats opened the day and saw all three competing Beagles easily progress into the semi-finals. Ava Carter won her heat in 27.46 with Honey Peck and Nicole Hawkins both second in theirs (times 28.44 and 28.48 respectively), Nicole with a PB. In the semi-finals Ava finished second in her race with a 27.33 sprint seeing her through to the final. Honey and Nicole both fought well but couldn’t match their heat times (28.71 and 28.61 respectively). The 200m final saw a very competitive race with Ava finishing 6th in a time of 27.73. The 300m also proved a popular event for our sprinters with Nicole Hawkins tackling her second event of the day and just narrowly missing out on a place in the final with her run of 44.97. Stephanie Smith ran well in her heat finishing second in 44.73 and qualifying for the final. Another fast paced final race ensued with Steph finishing 6th in 46.15.

Just one of our field athletes was in action at the championships. Well done to Eleanor Angeli who threw her shot 6:23, 6.21 and 5.96 to finish 12th in the U15 event.

Our endurance runners were clearly inspired by the sprint squad and produced their own strong results. Madison Kindler took the U13 girls 800m title in a race she dominated throughout, running not only a PB but also a championship best performance of 2:22.28. A very well deserved gold medal. Missy Tiller won her U15 girls heat with a good run of 2:26.28 taking her through to the final where she finished 5th in 2:35.15. Jude Hearn finished second in his U15 boys 800m heat with a new PB of 2:13.12 and qualification for the final. Sadly his final was undermined by a flaring of his recent bone spur issue saw a more cautious race and a 5th place finish of 2:16.83. Finally Max Sanderson showed his desire to win with a brilliant 800m heat victory of 2:01.49 to qualify for the final. One of the last races of the day, Max surged to the front and built a strong lead before battling to the finish line and finishing in bronze medal position with a new PB of 1:59.45.

A huge well done to everyone who competed – it was great to watch your personal successes on a competitive stage.

Sevenoaks School Knole Run

Dean Savery travelled with this school on Saturday to take part in the prestigious Sevenoaks School Knole Run. A very tough course over 9.4km across undulating terrain and up and down tough hills, Dean proved a worthy opponent finishing first for his school and 27th overall in 36.11. Well done!

Parkrun and Junior parkun round up

It was another cold weekend for our parkrunners but at least the rain has given way, allowing all our local events to take place.  

We start our round-up at Billericay where the course remains on the fully paved route, providing good opportunities for a quick time. This was highlighted by Lianne Esterhuysen (21:25)who ran the event for the first time and picked up her best 5k finish, beating last weeks’ effort at Raphael by nearly 50 seconds. Lianne also becomes the 2nd fastest ever JW10 runner, meaning the Beagles now hold 6 of the top 10 times in the age category, great work! She was more than ably paced by Laura Durn (21:26 PB) who picked up a course and all-time best as well! Daniel Esterhuysen (22:36) continued his swift progression, finishing just a few seconds outside of his PB set last week at Raphael. Elliot Worth (19:12) finished 3rd overall to cap off a good morning out for the Beagles. 

At Raphael, there were some great performances as well. Matthew Jones (21:33) finished 28th closely followed by Callum Goodey (21:49); both within sight of their course PBs. Emily Brewington (23:27) maintained her consistent run of results while Dylan Hussain (24:43 PB) secured a course best. 

We had just 1 runner at Chelmsford but Adam Armour (20:59) put in a fine performance to finish just outside the top 50 from a field of over 800. Over at Harrow Lodge, Preston Taylor & Matthew Delea (both 21:37) finished 6th & 7th respectively, with Matthew picking up a course best. At Brentwood, Stuart Crowther (21:46) finished 6th also picking up the best age grade and finally at Thurrock, Orsett Heath, Louis Geater (20:14 PB) ran well to finish 3rd overall and collect his course best by a considerable margin. 

On Sunday, with the Hutton Rec course significantly drier, there were some good times from our junior Beagles. They were lead in by Jamie Murphy (08:55) who finished 2nd, just ahead of Ethan Wilson (09:21) in 3rd who just pipped Nadia Price (09:25), 4th. 6th place went to Nora Heidemans (10:03), 9th Jessica Thomson* (10:51), 11th Chloe Thomson* (11:08), 15th Joshua Thomson* (12:00) while Max Wilson (11:36) came 13th. Joshua Barke (12:17) finished 16th while Liam Worth (21:51)was volunteering & on tail-walking duties. 

At Harrow Lodge, Emily Brewington (08:25)had a strong run finishing 2nd while Blossom Smith (09:51) came 7th. Ezra-Zion Gooch (10:37) finished 14th with Freya Brewington (11:19)17th.  Meanwhile at Lake Meadows, Sophie Bickerstaff (08:33) ran well to finish 5th with Magnus Wilks* (10:12) coming in 11th. Finally, at Chelmsford, Adam Armour (08:10) ran well to finish 3rd. 

Coming up

With temperatures dropping it’s going to be a cold week for training so please do remember to wrap up warm when you come. A hat or buff are always very sensible options and both are on sale at the track during every session. Please remember layers and gloves too!

Away from training next weekend sees the Essex secondary schools cross country championship take place in Benfleet – good luck to all the Beagles who will be representing their school in an attempt to win and Essex Schools Vest. Saturday also sees the London Cross Challenge event taking place with much anticipation being made over the event! You can view the live stream for this here.