Loftus Athletic Club

SENIORS SET FOR THE NATIONALS

Men - The Senior men set about the task of trying to qualify for the National Six Stage Relays by finishing as one of the top 25 A teams in the Northern Area finals held at a sunny but slightly breezy seafront at Hartlepool on Saturday,this was not going to be an easy task especially considering the many Cities boasting larger Athletic Clubs.

Despite this and with a few others missing we could still field one of our strongest teams for many years and had the luxury of a very able B team ( a good achievement in itself ) each tackling the fast 5.5 km stretch along the prom.

First away for the A team was Club Captain Dave Parkin who had the task of trying to stay with the early pace setters and not managed to stay only 31 seconds behind the 25th A team coming home in 18.00 minutes and handing over to our top athlete Alec Duffield making short work of picking off the many runners in his path and quickly put us where we wanted to be running an excellent 16.02 minutes and gaining an incredible 23 places before handing over to our top junior Lewis Rodgers who excelled and ran a very confident leg holding on to his position with ease and running a quick 17.44 minutes.

He handed over to Kevin Patterson who enjoys the relays and always goes well ,He continued his fine form by running an excellent leg of 18.28 minutes and keeping the team well within our target.

Mark Walker was our man on Leg 5 making a welcome return to running in the our colours of Burgendy and yellow and still continues to improve over the season running a solid and controlled race ( 19.41 minutes ) leaving our anchor man Paul Wildmore who stepped up to the A team only hours earlier did all that was asked of him running a sensible leg pushing hard over the last mile when challenged ensuring our passage to the Nationals coming home in 26th place and most importantly 23rd A team.

Our B team also enjoyed the seaside resort giving our reserves our best ever B team Six stage finish with each one having a commendable race and all willing to do their best for the team Steve Hardy,Graham Youngson,Neil Duffield,Dave Horness, Chris Ellis and Graham Robinson who have all recently returned from injuries and illnesses ran well andit was nice to see them racing again, as without those we would not have a squad.

Thanks for all your efforts Cheers Dave

A TEAM RESULTS B TEAM RESULTS

1 Dave Parkin ( 40 ) 18.00 1 Steve Hardy ( 71 ) 20.04

2 Alec Duffield ( 17 ) 16.02 2 Graham Youngson ( 73 ) 21.45

3 Lewis Rodgers ( 17 ) 17.44 3 Neil Duffield ( 71 ) 20.11

4 Kevin Patterson ( 18 ) 18.28 4 Dave Horness ( 68 ) 22.06

5 Mark Walker ( 23 ) 19.41 5 Chris Ellis ( 66 ) 21.42

6 Paul Wildmore ( 26) 20.25 6 Graham Robinson ( 64 ) 21.59

26th - 1:50:20 64th - 2:07:47

Women - The women's team also had a great day out at Hartlepool. Leading off for Loftus and Whitby, Nicola Kent ran a great leg against very strong opposition to bring the team in, in a very useful 29th place. Angharad Owen took over to run a very strong leg taking 9 places (and getting 7th fastest runner on this leg) to hand over to Megan Ellis in 20th position. Megan also had a good run and her improving form saw her take 3 more places to hand over in 16th position. This left anchor Joanne Abbott to consolidate the position by taking one more place and giving the team 16th overall out of 41 full teams competing.