PLEASE CONTINUE TO KEEP FREE SATURDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING 30TH MAY FOR THE CLUB AWARDS AT THE RUGBY CLUB (YES 3 WEEKS TIME) Watch out for whatsapp update Milton Keynes Marathon – bank holiday Monday 3rd May In the recent London marathon Mike Hobbs just wasn’t feeling it, so he took his foot off the gas to run in with a struggling friend, finishing in (for him) a disappointing time of 3.20.30. However, he has form for not accepting an off-day, and keeping it under his hat, h

Great height from Aria on her long jump. Virtual hurdle shown in red! On Bank Holiday Monday, six Club athletes from one of our youngest to one of our oldest participated in the Open meeting events at the Blackridge track: Jess Jacobs (8) doing U10 Quadkids : 75m, Standing Long Jump, Howler Throw and 600m Ed Knight (12) : 1500m Aria Stavrakakis (12) : 100m, 200m & Long Jump Alice Averies [second claim] (12) : 800m Toby Conway (14) : 1500m Dorian Matts (MV65) : 100m,

******************CHEDWORTH CAKE ALERT***************** If you use whatsapp you will probably already have spotted a plea for cake donations next weekend – there’s likely to be over 200 mouths to feed on Sunday 10th May at the village hall race HQ in Chedworth. Think how you’d feel if you’d slogged round the countryside only to find the cake had run out when you got back – nightmare!! “Dear Everyone, this is my annual plea for cakes for Chedworth. We ran out of cakes las

Last Sunday, some of Teens were back on the track: Beth Benians trying out her first non-school athletics meeting at the supportive Low Key Open at the Prince of Wales stadium in Cheltenham "old hands" Aria Stavrakakis, Ed Knight, Henry Woodfine, Holly Stewart-Hodges and Wilf Ryder were competing at the Gloucester Spring Open. All of them are Under 14s, except Henry who is 14 and so is now U16 (we have moved to even number age groups for Juniors, so plenty of opportunities fo

A truly historic athletics landmark was set today by the men's winner of the London marathon, officially breaking the 2 hour barrier for the first time in a race setting. Although that probably won't be included in this 36-minute podcast produced by member Dave Musgrave on the history of running, you may want to give it a listen https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/historyextra-podcast/id256580326?i=1000763214960 There was plenty of racing this weekend, so read on to see

Having had the first open track and field meeting last Sunday (read about it here ), we have some more opportunities for trying track and field in the next weeks: Gloucester Spring Open at Blackridge Stadium, Gloucester, Sunday 26th April (enter via here ) Low Key Open (for Under 14s and younger) at Prince of Wales stadium, Cheltenham, also on Sunday 26th April (enter here ). This is the first of three events - the other two are in June. Brewer Memorial Games (hosted by Chelt

{No, the photo that Wix selected isn't of the wedding couple alluded to in the headline ;-))} As promised last week, news on two more marathons on Sunday 19 th , with at least 2 next weekend to come. Newport Marathon The club had 5 athletes lining up for this “international” marathon on a flat course made better by almost perfect weather conditions – dry, hardly any wind, sunny but starting at under 10C (it did get a little warmer by midday). Men’s captain Aaron Willi

All Teens summer sessions are planned to be outside at Deer Park on the grass track area, at the usual time (6:30 to 7:30). We will be trying a new approach to the sessions to better align the activities with the Teens’ specific interests and introducing some new activities to aid their physical development. The sessions will be organised initially into two groupings, generally based on age, i.e. Bears, Seahawks and Lions (BSL) as one grouping, and Vikings, Giants and Titans

Ed in his new 'go faster' spikes Only three Club members competed at the Mark Cawte memorial games at Foundation Park track in Swindon on Sunday, as T&F "stalwart", Aria Stavrakakis was ill. A mixed weather day, but with a chilling strong wind made it a tough day for good performances (I'm getting in my excuses early!). But we did have two Teens who despite that set PBs : Ed Knight in the 1000m and Alice Averies in the 600m. Their coach also participated in some events, bizar

Friends Jess and Florence took it steady running together at the pace of "chat". Hi all, on a bright but cold and windy Sunday morning half a dozen of our Juniors and Teens pitched up for the (2k) Junior Parkrun in Lydiard Park. Although the author was very familiar with the location, it was his first experience of Junior Parkrun, and he thought it was excellent. With loads of marshalls (44), a very friendly Race Director introduction and a fun warm up for all participants (8

It was set to be another fairly quiet weekend for racing until we heard of a club runner competing in the first big marathon of the season (you’ll hear plenty more about marathons over the next two weeks at least). We're grateful for Charlie Clarke sending this report in - “I ran the Brighton marathon today and finished in 4 hours 14 minutes. It was a comfortable run with excellent crowd support and a twisting course that covers all that Brighton has to offer. It was wi

What, the club? Well not quite. Club member Susanna Austin is featured in the May edition of Runner's World which is the latest edition currently available in magazine racks, with Harry Styles on the cover, whoever he is ;-). Susanna is "Member of the Month" and kindly ensured that her club membership was included, along with Tuesday training. We can't reproduce the whole article here but here's an extract photo provided by Susanna - many congratulations to her, and thank

***********************POLITE REMINDERS******************** Club Secretary Rich Allen has asked us to remind you all of the following Your nominations are invited BY WEDNESDAY for the committee to consider in deciding on the club awards for 2025. There is a handy form you can fill in here https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAAGBUbVcqtBUNE01VFZROENJNjJMWVZCTzlSMDdFRlZNOC4u&route=shorturl Can you also please let us know ASAP if yo

These are events that act as an introduction to athletics meetings and so are for younger athletes (U14s {year 8} and younger). They are put on by Cheltenham and County Harriers at the Prince of Wales Stadium (Tommy Taylors Lane, Cheltenham) in a very supportive environment. The first event is on Sunday 26th April starting at 9:45am. The whole event is finished at 2pm. Sign-up is simple via an online spreadsheet here So why not let your Junior / younger Teen try out athletics

There are some opportunities to do athletics in April: Mark Cawte Memorial, Swindon, Sunday 12th April Running2Time Midweek Open, Oxford, Wednesday 22nd April (1st of a monthly series) Gloucester AC Spring Open, Sunday 26th April There will be more events in May (I will post about that as soon as they are open to enter). Registration for the events as follows: Mark Cawte (Swindon): here Running2Time (Oxford) : here Gloucester Open via Why not give them a try? Dorian

On Saturday some of our Juniors, all boys (now, come on girls!!!), ran in the National Primary Schools Cross-Country Championships at Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire. The course was tough, undulating with long grass, but the weather was not the usual XC weather (see photo). Albert pleased with his medal Representing the Club, in the Year 4 boys race (U9s), we had: Brecon Musk and George Platts . In Year 5 (U10s) race it was: Ruaridh Wright , and in Year 6 (U11s), it was George's

Quite a busy weekend for our members competing over distances from 5 mi to half marathon on road and trail – all today Sunday 22 nd . We'll start with the run that looked the most fun! Chianti trail half marathon (Italy, obviously) Angela Hilditch covered just about 3,000ft of elevation in this trail race, and looking at her photos on Strava no wonder her comment was “Stunning scenery, really fun, very hilly ⛰️🍇” Angela Hilditch with the enviable scenery behind of the

15 March 2026, Fission ‘20’ and HM at Berkeley former Power Station Shifting from a Saturday to clash with Mothering Sunday didn’t seem to reduce by too much the numbers running the Fission 20 and HM races at Berkeley this year. Whilst the 20 mile race was in the Glos AAA road race series, it also attracts runners from Wales, Avon, Wiltshire and even further afield. some of them of a very high standard ( the winning time for the 20 miles was faster than anyone from our clu

Each summer we measure some performances on the track and field, so we can see how the Teens, in particular, are progressing. In addition to just looking at how the performanne level changes over time, we use a couple of established standards: the English Schools Sports Associations (ESAA) standards and the EA PB Awards standards. I have already reported on the ESAA achievements by Juniors and Teens . For the PB Awards, there are no U11 standards, the lowest age group being

As mentioned in the QuadKids competition blog , here I am going to report the best performances, last summer semester, as determined by the England Schools Athletics Association standards. The standards are set up to motivate children and recognise their improvement and go from 1 to 9. Age is not a factor, but gender is, so the expectation is that children will increase their level, or "stages" as ESAA call them as they do athletics events. Consequently, it's almost impossibl