The allusion to Enid Blyton's Famous Five stories is deliberate, as the weather certainly made this St George's Open Track meeting an adventure for some of us - although fortunately none of our Club Teens members had to run in the hail storm!
The races were graded on expected finishing time.
Mimi van Wyk crossing the line
Daisy van Wyk second from left. (deliberately blurry video screen capture to meet GDPR!)
Teens' Archie, Daisy , Mimi and Tom, and coach Dorian, all ran the 100m before the heavens opened, but Tom and Dorian ran the 200m in the rain. Great performances by all with sisters Daisy and Mimi coming second in their graded races in just under 14 and 15 seconds respectively. Both Tom and Archie went sub-13 seconds.
Archie, who has just turned 15, was in a really competitive race with all 6 runners finishing within 0.3 seconds (about 5m!). Just as well, Gloucester AC, the hosts, were using electronic timing, hence times accurate to hundredth of a second.
I'm pretty sure Archie's 100m is the fastest time recorded by a Cirencester AC runner, beating Henry Sheffield's time from 2019. Tom also beat that previous mark, but has time on his side, being 18 months younger than Archie.
Archie running in Pam's favourite Club vest (my fault again)
NB image is blurry because he's going so fast!
The were two sets of 100m races starting at 12:00 and 2pm, with the Teens running in the earlier races and their coach in the latter.
Maybe the weather played a part but some of the 200m fields were quite small as perhaps some runners decided to call it a day when the weather deteriorated. Cold damp weather is not conducive to fast times and increases risk of injury, due to difficulties in warming up properly. Tom's race was only three runners and he was third, starting to tie up with 80m to go, probably due to the difficulty in warming up properly after the long wait in the rain, but he still clocked under 28s. What was also confusing is that they had allocated him a different number for the 200m, but hadn't informed him, so he came in with a different name on the results board! We'll see what Power of 10 makes of that!
Tom finishing his 200m, sadly, that's not his time, and where's your club vest?
Later in the evening, non-Teen (!), James Widdowson (MV45), ran in the 5000m. Here's what he felt about the event:
"Had a blast! Loved the inclusive supportive atmosphere, made being lapped by rest of field multiple times much easier to deal with. Surface great for over fast start and then felt just as tough as road for the hard yards which followed. 22:03 on watch, better age grade % than my road PB"
Perhaps others might wish to try out the track - remember you'll never run faster.
EVENT RESULTS
100m
Race 3 (based on gradings, 1= fastest)
1st Samantha Griffiths [SW] (Birchfield Harriers) 12.13
5th Archie Hatt [U17B] (Cirencester AC) 12.37
Race 6
1st Akash Shetty [U15B] (Newport Harriers) 12.42
2nd Tom Hoskins [U15B] (Cirencester AC) 12.99
Race 9
1st Amber Tandy [U15G] (Cheltenham Harriers) 13.65
2nd Daisy van Wyk [U17W] (Cirencester AC) 13.97
Race 14
1st Mia Hastings [U17W] (Cheltenham Harriers) 14.60
2nd Mimi van Wyk [U15G] (Cirencester AC) 14.72
100m Round 2
4th Dorian Matts [MV60] (Cirencester AC) 15.78 (PB)
200m
3rd Tom Hoskins [U15B] (Cirencester AC) 27.17
n/a Dorian Matts [MV60] (Cirencester AC) 34.20
5000m
James Widdowson [MV45] (Cirencester AC) 22.03