As we see every week our wonderful members continue to compete in races and events far and wide.
NEMAA Track & Field – Monday 1st August
Kicking the week off on the track at Monkton Stadium was the 5th meet in the North East Masters Athletics Association calendar.
Eric Lewis continues to enter a plethora of events, and continues his great form in Javelin with a 25.98m throw resulting in 4th place overall, and top MO60.
Heat 7 in the 100m sprint saw Louise Allen come with 0.3s of her PB to finish 2nd FO50 in 16 seconds.
The favoured event by Elswick members this time was the 3000m, with 5 entrants across 2 heats (2 and 3). NEMAA seeds every event, so all entrants compete against people of a broadly similar ability, both male and female.
Mark McNally and Melissa Bateson were in heat 2, placed 14th and 18th respectively. Mark was the 1st MO75 and Melissa was 3rd FO50.
Heat 3 included a very competitive field of 20 runners including Simon Allen (4th, and 3rd MO55), Daniel Nettle 16th, and 6th MO50), and Eric Lewis (19th, and 6th MO60).
Fitting in all these events is not too easy, but Eric just can’t be pinned down. In addition to javelin and 3000m he also achieved 1.20m in the High Jump, coming 1st in the MO60 category.
Continuing her campaign towards sprint domination, Louise battled through torrential rain in the last event of the evening – 400m. She achieved a fantastic PB time of 1:16.2 and was only just pipped at the finishing post to come 2nd FO50 (3rd overall in her category).
There’s only one more meet of NEMAA Track & Field this season, and placings are still being battled out in the Grand Prix – we may not have a lot of entrants, but expect some great results at the end of the month.
3000m times:
- Melissa Bateson – 13:37.8 – FO50
- Mark McNally – 12:59.9 – MO75
- Eric Lewis – 12:25.2 – MO60
- Daniel Nettle – 12:01.3 – MO50
- Simon Allen – 11:05.0 – MO55
Northern Track & Field League – Meet 4
This was the the final match of the Senior Track & Field League (Northern Athletics) on Saturday 6th, here’s the report of the day from Eric Lewis.
A small but determined team turned out for the last senior league track and field event at Churchill playing fields in Whitley Bay on Saturday.
Ages ranged from 15 to 61, with Elliot Kelso (U17) competing for the very first time in the seniors 1500m. Elliot looked almost surprised as he strolled to an easy win (in a time of 4:18.55), although a strong wind kept times down throughout the day. Great contribution from Daniel Nettle as B runner in the same race (and A runner in the 800m) scoring good points with a determined run from Melissa Bateson in the 3000m.
Charlie Katsighiras-Welton, competing in only his second T&F match continued his winning streak, this time with a fairly easy win in the 400m. Two other good results in the men’s sprints with Blaydon lads Ewan Brown and Joseph Nicholson both running PBs to finish near the front in 100 and 200m. Good points totals were earned by Sky Lewis (U17) in the High Jump, Discus and Hammer, Ellie Fellows (U17, Blaydon) in the 1500m and High Jump with Blaydon discus throwers Tara Paxton and Lauren Storey also performing well, with Lauren adding her usual number of “out of the comfort zone” track events.
Eric and Su Lewis managed to add to the family points tally with a total of 10 events between them in a variety of throws, jumps and track events. Eric managed PBs in both Javelin and Shot Putt (narrowly beating Daniel Nettle’s best Putt), and Su having a go at her first ever Long Jump.
The event of the day was the only relay team we were able to field in the women’s 4x100m, with two U17s (one distance runner and one thrower) a senior thrower and a vet parent. Mother and daughter Su and Sky Lewis from Elswick running together in this one for the first time ever with everyone giving their best on the day. Whilst we had some good winners, it was the taking part that did it including the contributions from parents/helpers as non-qualified officials – well done to the whole team!
– Eric Lewis
Our joint team with Blaydon Harriers finished the season in 6th position from 8 teams.
A huge “thank you” to the participants that have played their part in these events over the past few months.
Full results for match 4 will be on https://www.northernathletics.co.uk/track-field-league/ when they have been uploaded (as of writing the incorrect file has been uploaded).
It would be marvellous next year to see our team emulate what the Elswick Juniors have achieved in track & field in 2022 – all we need is more seniors participating and giving each event a go.
Darlington 10k – Sunday 7th August
This was the 35th anniversary of the Darlington 10k, starting and finishing in the town centre, following a mainly circular route through the streets.
Imogen Bungay continues her excellent 10k form with a superb chip time of 38:21. She was 6th female overall, and 1st junior female from a field of 1121 entrants.
Not many pictures this week…
