Angel Flies High

Jill soars to Silver

While we are a Road Running Club, it is great to note the fantastic achievements of club members in other parts of our brilliant sport. Two of our members were indoors in the warm last weekend...

Great news from the British Masters Indoor Championships held last weekend, Jill Harrison, our own Angel Felix, produced her best time for two years and achieved the silver medal. Fantastic.

Jill said 'Silver today at British Masters Indoor Champs, 3000m, 11min 21s My fastest for 2 years, very pleased and thanks to all for your encouragement xx'

Next for Jill I believe are the World Masters Championships in Brazil, and she will be going with the full support of every member of the best running club around!

Dave Richardson also had a great meet, he put the following report on Facebook

Attended the British Indoor Veterans Championship at Lee Valley. I had car problems with bad smoke being emitted and decided it was safer to get the train than risk it. The train was lovely because I had a nice catchup sleep but the tube was too stressful because of claustrophobia. But I arrived just as Rob Grew was going to race the 400m final. It was the most exciting race as he came from third at the bell to win a title by 1/100th of a second. I shouted out “Dip” so loudly that I strained my voice. So it's important to warm up your voice as well! 

For my 200m race it was an anti-social 9:55 start. I got up very early. Had a light breakfast but didn't have a lift from the hotel to the track. My tactic was to look round the breakfast area after 7am for older guys wearing trainers because they were all veteran athletes! Got a lift in from off a really nice Irish guy and this son. He's the Irish 60m recordholder at M70. In 2009 he ran 8.3s which is amazing. In the 200m I started strongly despite having the notorious 6 six draw. As I crossed the bend for some reason I thought the line judge/flag lady had DQ me then on the downslope wobbled because of the steepness of the bank. Serious right ankle strain. Powered up the straight but coming round the top bend was a nightmare. The track at this point had uneven dips and threw me sideways and forward. It was a struggle to stay in the lane but worse was that I was stumbling forward and overstriding to keep my balance. The time was 28.9 which was 0.6 of second worse than two weeks ago when I had a fairer lane 3 draw. 

Other people have complained about the outer lanes, it's not just my wonky balance. I was had to pick myself up and wait 3 hours for the 800m. Fortunately, reinforcements arrived in the form of the Harrison family, Jill, Graham and Rocky to cheer me up. In the 800 I was with much faster runners than me; one guy being the fastest in the country. So I adopted a spoiler tactic of sprinting off ahead of them into the first bend and then slowing down to get them to slow! It worked. Then I cruised round behind them for the first two laps. By then it got seriously quick. I pushed as hard as I could to stay in touch. It was a gamble because by the last lap I was slowing and really feeling it. Crowd support for Malcolm and Jill & co got me round the finish to record a 2:28.17 time. Very surprised to run my best indoors and 4th fastest by age-graded at 78.5%. 5 years ago I did 2:29 in this event. I'm really chuffed to break 2:30 this early in the season, mainly off general fitness with only a few specific sessions. (It would be a world record if I was my dad and 75 years old!) 

Getting on the train back into the centre I was talking to a guy who had travelled to Championships all the way from the Scottish Islands, coming down on an overnight sleeper bus. As we were talking running when a women nearby indicated via her trainers than she was a veteran as well. I asked her what event she had done. “800.” “Oh same as me.” “Did it go well?” “Oh yes, I broke the World Record!!!!” This was overwhelming. It was Laura Mahady, the British 800 record holder at W50 who had just turned W55. I got some very significant training tips off Laura and David. Had my car been okay then I wouldn't have had these chance meetings. So everything works out for a reason, even if you don't know it at the time.

Nice one Dave

See you all soon

Terry