At the beginning of the month, Shildon Running Club’s AGM took place. Diane Wood has stood down as Chairwoman after four years to enable her to spend more time coaching, and long-serving under 11’s coach Jean Best announced her retirement from coaching.
Vivienne Rudge was welcomed as the new chairwoman, while Sarah Tilley and Emma Flynn joined the committee as Fundraising Coordinators.
Chris Griffiths is now the Coaching Coordinator, and Annie Pluse is Welfare Officer.
A freezing sunny winters day on Saturday 24th in Pontefract saw the annual Northern XC Championship, and four Shildon athletes braved the cold to tackle the extremely muddy course.
First up was Chloe Fairclough in the 3.1km Under 13 Race. She finished in 95th position out of 196 in a time of 13:30. Next up was Cameron Stainsby and Harrison Daglish, in a 4km Under 15s.
Cameron was the first Shildon athlete home in a position of 104th in a time of 15:53, and Harrison finished in 163rd position with a time of 18:39. Last up competing in the Senior Women was Lizzie Wood in an 8km two lap course, finishing in a time of 37:13 in a position of 123rd out of a field of 342.
The Sprint Group have been busy over the past couple of months both competitively and in training as the indoor season builds to both the Northern and North Eastern Championships in February.
On 3rd January Rachel Bennett attended the Commsport Open at Sheffield where she competed in both the 60m and 200m at under 15 level. At 60m Rachel ran well to finish 4th overall recording a time of 8.27 seconds whilst in her first 200m outing at this level, she put in another good performance finishing 3rd in 27.23 seconds.
On 17th January Georgia Hirst ran in the Northern Indoor Championships at Sheffield in the under 20 Women’s 400m event where she put in a spirited performance to finish 3rd in her heat in 61.55 seconds.
On 22nd January coach Darren Hirst took a number of athletes from the Sprint Group to the Gateshead Indoor Open Meeting where a number of excellent performances enhanced Shildon’s growing reputation for producing good sprint athletes.
Both 12 year-olds, Rachel Bennett and Maddie Wells, stepped up an age group to run in the Under 17 60m races to gain valuable experience, and neither were phased by their senior opposition as Rachel won overall in 8.16 seconds with Maddie finishing 3rd in 8.34 seconds.
In the second round of races Rachel again finished 1st overall in 8.2 seconds whilst Maddie sprinted to 3rd place in 8.32 seconds.
Kyle Walton also stepped up to under 17 level on the night and showed he wasn’t afraid of his senior opposition, recording a time of 7.84 seconds in his first race.
Despite this being only the second time he has represented the club and with the hard work he has displayed in training paying off, he ran brilliantly in his second race to produce a PB and a new club record at 60m (under 15 men) in 7.80 seconds.
Shildon & District's local community newspaper.
