7 minute read
December
Winter Season Continues November sees more Cross Country, Triathlon and Sportshall events.
CLASH DAYTONA 2022 Kieran Lindars, off the back of a sub-8 win at Challenge Almere with a 2:42:54 run and finishing 7th last time at Daytona in 2019, was looking to move up this time around the track. After a hard race in the heat of Daytona, Kieran finished in 11th place with a time of 02:31:09.
KIERAN LINDARS: BREAKFAST WITH BOB AT CLASH DAYTONA Watch Breakfast with Bob from CLASH Daytona 2022 filmed on location at the Daytona International Speedway.
https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=E_Ndo2ySVCs
PTO WORLD RANKING
Congratulations to Kieran Lindars on moving up 83 places in the World Professional Triathlon Organisation (PTO) rankings to 82nd. His target for this year was top 100. World ratings 5th Dec 2022 discipline: OVERALL (swim/bike/run)
https://stats.protriathletes.org/ rankings/men
U13 AND U15 SPORTSHALL December saw the start of the competitive Sportshall season, with VoAAC U13 and U15's athletes attending a trials competition, along with athletes from other clubs, from which the Bucks County Sportshall teams would be selected. Any VoAAC athletes selected for the county team will be travelling down to Sussex in February 2023, as part of the Bucks County Team, competing in the South East Regional Sportshall finals. The Sportshall content is designed to aid athletics development in an indoor environment. It is fast moving, fun, indoor athletics. All athletes took part in events including: Standing Long Jump, Standing Triple Jump, Vertical Jump, Speed Bounce (20 seconds), High Stepper, Soft javelin throw, Chest Push, shot, 2 lap run and 1 lap hurdles run. A big thank you to all of the VoAAC coaches and parents who helped officiate at the competition, it couldn't have happened without your help! Well done to all of the athletes who competed. There were some great results, available here:
http://www.mkac.org.uk/ static/22buckssportshallu15.htm
SOUTHERN MASTERS CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS The Southern Masters Cross Country Championships were held in Horspath, Oxford (Shotover) on Saturday December 10th, and the VoAAC was represented by four athletes – Tim Jones, Andy Byerley, Alan Roberts and Trevor Lynch. In what was one of the coldest Decembers in recent years, the event took place in lovely winter sunshine, albeit at a temperature of 2c – even colder at the top of the hill! The route was 9.4k using a variation of the course we follow for the Chiltern League XC events at Shotover – including the obligatory 'twice up the hill' for good measure. Andy, Alan and Trevor competed as a team in the vets (50 – 59) category, while Tim competed in the 65-69 category. Tim performed really well and took first place in his category in a time of 42:51 – almost a full two minutes ahead of the next placed athlete in the category. The VoAAC Vets 50 team finished in 7th place (out of nine teams) in the Vet 50 category, and 21st out of 27 overall. Individually, the guys finished as follows (in their age group):1st Tim Jones – 42:51 17th Andy Byerley – 42:05 33rd Trevor Lynch – 48:08 12th Alan Roberts – 51:58
PARENT HELPERS Thank you to all of our new parent helpers who have pitched in over the last few months with our KESTRELS groups as they moved indoors for the winter. We hope you are all really enjoying the experience and will continue when we move back outdoors in April! Being a parent helper is a really important role within the club. Helping coaches run sessions and helping to providing athletes with more opportunities within groups. We are always on the lookout for more parents to get involved. Being a parent helper means you don't need to commit the time required to qualify as a coaching assistant (the first step on the coaching ladder), but still provide help within sessions. The more parent helpers we have the less pressure there is to have to commit your time every week. We recommend all coaching volunteers (14+ yrs) starting out within athletics attend a Leading Athletics workshop, a two-part webinar that will provide you with the knowledge and confidence to help run a session. Hopefully some of you will be bitten by the bug and will want to progress further by becoming a coach. It is a really rewarding experience and the club will support anyone wanting to progress within our coaching team. We can't have athletes without the coaches needed to train them.
Anyone thinking about helping out at training, please speak to Clare when you are at the track or email: voaacgeneralsec@btinternet.com
Grand Prix
GRAND PRIX 2022 The Grand Prix is a points based internal competition where VoAAC members compete against each other in a number of local races over the course of the year. There’s a cash prize for the top three men and women as well as 12 months free membership for the winners! Races in this year’s competition included the Aylesbury Parkrun, Maidenhead 10 mile, the Mota-vation Series as well as our own Waddesdon 5K. Points awarded are based on members’ six best performances across 16 different rounds with extra points also awarded for the top three aged graded percentages, top three finishes in their age categories and any top three team finishes in each race.
To date the results for 2022 are now almost complete so the unofficial final standings for the top three men and women are as follows. A full list of the year’s results can be found on our website. Notable performances from 2022 include: • James Davis at the Aylesbury Parkrun – to date
James has now notched up a staggering 31
Parkrun victories in 2022 equalling his 5K PB of 16m 22s in the process. • Peter Huck in the Mota-vation Series – Peter stormed to victory in the 2nd of this 5-race series in Oxfordshire finishing 1st by over a minute.
Peter also went on to compete in his 1st marathon in Frankfurt in October finishing in an incredible 2 hours 25 minutes.
• Tim Jones has finished 1st in his age category in five of his Grand Prix races as well as 2nd in another and 4th in the Abingdon Marathon. Tim’s marathon time of 3h 14m at Abingdon was also the 10th fastest time nationally for the V65 age group. • Sophie Delderfield has also had a terrific year marathon running, finishing 3rd at Edinburgh in 2h 48m and following this up with an amazing 2h 51m at London. Sophie has also had three half marathon victories all under 79 minutes as well as victory at the Eynsham 10K.
Position Top 3 Men No. of Races Points
1 Tim Jones 6 (Best) 185 2 Alan Roberts 6 (Best) 169 3 Andy Stephenson 5 77
Position Top 3 Women No. of Races Points
1 Sophie Delderfield 2 79 2 Sharon Maisey 3 77 3 Lucy Cuthbert 2 41
We are trying to create a bank of volunteers who will marshal for us at different events. If you are able to help bolster our team of marshals, please contact Pat Card at:
voaacmembersec@btinternet.com
Races can't happen without Marshals!
Each club entering a team into the Chiltern League is responsible for providing marshals to help at at least one of the matches. Match 2 saw our turn to provide marshals. A huge thank you to everyone who stepped forward to help out on the day. Without Marshals, much the same as officials at competitions, athletes can not compete and events cannot happen. Volunteer Marshals are a really important part of the club, if you can offer a couple of hours or an odd afternoon it would mean so much.
Race marshals are needed not only for Chiltern League matches, but for the Waddesdon 5k road race and when it returns, our Boxing Day Race. Not only do marshals provide guidance to athletes competing and the general public, but they also provide support and encouragement to athletes taking part, often waved to and thanked by athletes as they pass by. Not only really rewarding, marshalling can be great fun. We would like to build up a team of marshals within VoAAC, more hands make light work!
VoAAC Marshal
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