The second fixture of the season was hosted by Dartford Harriers on a lovely summer’s
evening, perfect for athletics and we even had the novelty of electronic timing.
However it was also Friday 13th so we were due some bad luck and the Friday afternoon traffic
delivered which meant the meeting had to be delayed by 15 mins.
When we did finally get underway first on the track was the 200 metres with B&B managing 3
wins out of 4 in the V35 age groups.
First up was Sam Williams who cantered to a win in the W35 A string race in a time 27.27 secs,
and there was also a win and PB for Daniela Sage in the B string race in a time of 28.45 secs.
In the mens A string race, the returning Duayne Bovell comfortably held off the Tonbridge
athlete to win in a time of 23.53 secs, and in the B string race the reverse happened, with
Ashley Reid finishing 2nd with a seasons best 25.17 secs.
In the M60 race, debutant Kevin Ansell finished 2nd in a PB of 28.05 secs and in a fast M50
race Ian Firla finished 4th in 27.17 secs.
And finally Helen Godsell (W70) finished a respectable 3rd in the W50 race with a time of 32.08
secs.
In an attempt to make up time some of the 1500m races were combined which made it a little
hard to follow live but still produced some strong results for the team.
There was a seasons best – 5:06.53 for Carol Coulon when finishing 2nd in the W35 A string
race, and Trang Nguyen won the B string race, also in a seasons best – 5:29.75
Jennie Butler finished second in the W50 race, and also finishing second whilst running 7:04.21
for a personal best was Jackie Montgomery in the W60 race.
On the mens side there were a trio of seasons best times. Micah Evans (M35 A String) 4th
place – 4:30.59, David Adams (M35 B String) 2nd place – 4:31.38 and Luca Ercolani (M50) 3rd
place – 4:49.33
There was another long Pole Vault competition for Roger Platt and Alan Hardy who were again
both competing in an age group down and whilst their finishing positions were the same as the
first fixture (2nd and 4th respectively) there were improvements in height with Roger clearing
3.20m and Alan 2m exactly.
In the Javelin, Tim Ayers improved his masters personal best by nearly 5 metres from 26.89m to
31.22m which was enough for 4th place, only 2m off 2nd. And Steve Langdon threw a seasons
best 36.28m to win the M50 event.
On the womens side, despite a lack of specialists, Sam Williams, Carole Coulon and Jackie
Montgomery were all able to get some valuable points for the team with 4th and 5th placed
finishes.
Jackie was also pole vaulting on the night (her 3rd event of the evening) and cleared 1.20m to
finish 2nd in the W50 event – impressive stuff!
Other multitaskers were Tim Ayres who was high jumping alongside the javelin in the M35
event, and Ian Firla who had to fit in a 200m in between attempts in the M50 high jump.
Coincidentally they both cleared 1.20m for 5th placed finishes, whilst Clem Leon was able to
clear 1.30m to finish 3rd for the M60’s.
Finally in the field, there were shot put competitions for the M60 and M70 age groups.
Paul Sutherland threw a PB 7.82m for a 5th place, whilst in the M70 event Richard Coe finished
2nd, also with a PB of 8.43m.
The evening finished on a high with a pair of 4x100m relays.
First up were the womens quartet – Jennie Butler, Helen Godsell, Daniela Sage and Sam
Williams – who brought the baton home in 2nd place in a time of 57.11secs, a personal best for
the W35 team.
The mens team – Iain Nye, James Burton, Ashley Reid and Duayne Bovell – went one better by
winning their race also in a M35 personal best 46.06 secs beating perennial event winners
Tonbridge in to 2nd place.
Overall the mens team finished 3rd on the night and remain in 3rd in the league, whilst the
womens team finished 2nd on the night but also remain 3rd in the league on total points
difference from Dartford despite both clubs having 9 points match points.
Tonbridge remain top in both leagues but are still within reach as we head into fixture 3 which
will also be held at Central Park on 27th June – hope to see you all there!
Ashley
