Weekly Update - 9th Apr. 2025

Assembly League #1, Beckenham Place Park (Thu. 3rd Apr.)

It was a fantastic start to this years Assembly League for the club with a race win for Bobby Babaker at Beckenham Place Park on Thursday, writes Graham Maynard. Bobby ran a sensible race, sitting with the leading group to check out the two-lap course, then pulled clear on the second lap to win in a time of 16:27. Kyle Hurst ran well to gain a top ten place (17:12) and Sally Carr was the clubs first woman in 152nd place (25:32).

The next race in the series is on Thursday 1st May at Victoria Park, Hackney. All club members are welcome to race and it’s free entry.

Lee Valley Spring Track & Field Open, Lee Valley (Sat. 5th Apr.)

After a long winter's training, the first outdoor competition of the year is always an exciting one, but comes with some trepidation, writes Mick Bond. Will the work you've put in actually improve your performance?

Elijah - Lily - Hans - Ekene

For the club's hurdlers, the answer was a resounding yes. Competing at the Lee Valley annual pre-season open, which has a reputation for attracting good hurdle fields, Elijah Olaleye (U17) tried out a new stride pattern over the 400m hurdles. Taking 14 strides between hurdles instead of 15 for the first six hurdles, he smashed his own club record by nearly half a second with 54.06s.

Hans Nmaju would have done the same in the U17 100m hurdles if had not been for a plus 2.8 m/s tail wind, making his time of 13.14s illegal for club record purposes. In the same race Elijah ran 13.40s with training partner Ekene Ogbonna not far behind in 14.14s.

For Lily Gayle the new season brings fresh challenges as moving up from 80m to 100m hurdles means higher hurdles and wider spacings. She was running well over the U20 hurdles, until clattering the eighth hurdle, but still finished with a PB of 15.54s.

Keziah Olaleye (U20) was just outside her PB for the 400m hurdles, but still three seconds faster than the same race last year, recording 63:52s.

Nia Thomas had her first outing over the 300m and 80mn hurdles, recording good times of 48.57 and 12.32s respectively.

Generali Prague Half Marathon, Prague (CZE) (Sat. 5h Apr.)

James Pitts (M45) finished the Prague Half-Marathon on Saturday, in 1:22:42.

Brighton Marathon Weekend (Sun. 6th Apr.)

Three club members made debuts over the marathon distance in warm conditions in Brighton on Sunday. Ben Guy was the first to finish in 3:19:27. Next was Julie Backley, who claimed third W50, with 3:28:22. Sophie Morris finished with a time of 4:03:23.

Stephanie Dungate and Tracy Brown tackled the 10k, recording times of 1:02:38 and 1:06:42 respectively.