Despite it being the last day of May it was a slightly chilly and windy Tonbridge School that hosted the second of six Southern Counties Vets Kent League fixtures.
This time the field events were Pole Vault for the women, High Jump for the men and Javelin for both men and women and on the track we had the 200m, 1500m and 4 x 100m relays for both teams.
The first event of the day was the 200m and began with a great performance from Daniela Sage who finished 2nd in a PB time 29.2 secs in the W35 A string 200m.
In the B string race, Laura Westrow secured 4th place in 34.4 secs, and in the W50 race Helen Godsell grabbed 3rd place with a 33.6 secs clocking.
On the mens side, in the M35 A string Ashley Reid came second in 25.6 secs and in the B string race a strong finish by James Burton got him the win with a PB of 26.1 secs.
In the M50, there was a photo finish for the top two, with Ian Firla finishing not far behind them in 3rd place in 27.2 secs and in M60 race Clem Leon, fresh from his recent holiday, was able to nab 4th place in 31.4 secs.
Despite running an extra 300m because of a faulty start (where the starter forgot to inform the timers that the race was starting) David Adams was still able to run a PB of 4:29.6 in the M35 A string 1500m race, finishing 5th.
In the B string, Mens Team Manager Steve Hough also ran a PB time 4:54.5 to grab another point for the team.
There was a great finish to the M50 1500m race, with Luca Ercolani sprinting away from the Tonbridge athlete in the home straight to win in a seasons best 4:44.9.
Fresh from her 200m, Laura Bestow ran in the W35 A string 1500m to grab another couple of points with a 5th place finish, and there was a seasons best time for Aurelia Osborne in the B string race, where she finished 3rd in 5:42.9.
Another athlete doubling up was Helen Godsell, who set the W70 club record mark by winning the M60 race in 7:16.5.
Womens Team Manager, Maz Turner is always willing to run/throw/jump in any event if it means getting at least a point and she did so again dropping down from W70 to the W50 1500m race coming home in 9:51.6.
In the field, sadly we had no athletes in the womens Pole Vault competitions, but in the Javelin there were a pair of 5th place finishes for W35 Daniela (14.83m) and the aforementioned Maz (4.57m) again in the W50 event.
In an unfamiliar event for her, the windy conditions meant unfortunately Helen’s javelin failed to land point down so wasn’t able to record a mark in the W60
On the mens side there was a win for Steve Langdon in the M50 with an impressive 35.42m throw whilst there was another 5th place for Tim in the M35 Javelin (18.51m)
Tim Ayers finished 5th in the M35 High Jump with 1.20m……and with some good attempts at the next height also delayed the competition enough to allow Ian (M50) and Clem (M60) to get back from the 200m so they could also jump 1.20m and 1.25m respectively, both finishing 4th.
The evening concluded with all the fun and jeopardy of the 4x100m relays
The Womens team (Helen Godsell, Aurelia Osborne, Laura Bestow) were superbly anchored home by Daniela Sage, nearly chasing down the Tonbridge runner, but they still claimed a solid 4th place with a 61.4 second clocking.
The Mens team (James Burton, Ian Firla, Tim Ayres, Ashley Reid) fared one better finishing 3rd in a time of 50.3 seconds.
Overall the Mens team scored 47 points finishing 3rd on the night, and also remain 3rd in the table.
The Womens team scored 29 points for 5th place on the night, and although they dropped down to 4th in the league, they are only a point from 2nd place so still plenty to play for.
Full results can be found here: http://scvac.org.uk/2024results/SVCAC-KentDivisionResults31052024.pdf
The next fixture is on Friday 14th June hosted by Dartford Harriers at Central Park Athletics track.
Hopefully see some of you there!
Ashley Reid
