A cool, damp Saturday saw 10 U13/U15 girls travel to Tooting Bec to compete in the last YDL match of the season.  Although we were already relegated the girls put in a sterling effort with 9 PBs and 1 SB.

We took 9 athletes down to Tooting Bec for the final match of the YDL league. Despite the rain on Saturday, the boys team showed some great individual performances. Well done to the following athletes who achieved PB’s:

A talented trio of Bedford & County athletes claimed four silver medals between them in international competition last weekend.

Pride of place must go to Life Member Raphael Boujou, who was competing in the European Under 23 Championships for Holland where he now resides.

On another good evening, Bedford hosted the latest round of the EMAC Masters League.  The evening started with the now customary wins for Adam Hills and John  Borgas in the 1500m walk, well done lads you are currently undefeated.

At the start of a very busy month for our youngest members of the Club the Girls put on an amazing show.  The U13s came 2nd, U15s and U17s 4th.  We again had an amazing number of PBs - 20 and SBs – 5.

Hornchurch was our first fixture of the month, and with 4 weekends of matches, we are certainly in for a busy few weeks. A warm welcome to our newest members of the team: Wilf, Owen and Archie. What a great start you made with fantastic performances and earned the team 24 points between you and 1st place positions for Archie and Owen – well done!

Bedford and County finished the fixture in 4th place yesterday; the boys scored 149 points in total.

Senior Relay Team the Golden Cherry on top of a Silver Speckled Cake

Bedford and County athletes in the Bedfordshire Schools Senior Relay Team put a golden cherry on top of a silver speckled cake at the English Schools Athletics Championships held at Birmingham’s Commonwealth Stadium last weekend.

In the inaugural running of the mixed 4 x 100m relay event, the well drilled quartet of Etienne Maughan, Jasmine Wilkins, Daniel Harding-Forbes and Ben Moseray stormed away to win the “A” final in a time of 45.05 seconds, beating the time of the winners of the B final by over a second. With this being the first running of this particular event, their time will mean that Bedfordshire currently hold five Championships Best Performances from over the 98 years of these national championships. 

The silver speckles come in the form of three silver medals over the two days of the championships.

Thaila-Jade Mason excelled at the Eastern Region Schools Heptathlon held at a a hot and humid Boston last weekend, finishing 4th in a good class field. An excellent score of 4,305 points, which included 4 personal bests, qualified her for the English Schools Combined Events Finals to be held at Bedford on the third weekend of September.

A team of 6 athletes from the Masters Endurance Group represented Bedford & County at the 2023 Greensand Ridge Relay on Saturday.  In hot and humid conditions, the team raced across 35 miles of trails, in 6 legs of varying lengths, from Leighton Buzzard to Northill village.  Run in a handicap format, the club set off in 32nd place, well over an hour after the first team to start.  Each team member (Ewan Wilson, Andy Blair, Tom Hayman, Charlie Palmer, Jim Black and Anna Folland) beat their handicap, overhauling slower runners in front of them to ultimately finish in 6th place overall, 2nd in the open category.  The total time of 4hrs 04mins 24secs was the fourth fastest on the day. 

The second match of the 2023 EMAC Season took place on a sunny but surprising cool evening at Cambridge University Track on Wednesday 7 June.  Bedford & County started the evening with two wins in the 1.5K walk with Adam Hills and John Borgas continuing their with their successes from last year.   Following a couple of late withdrawals due to work at home commitments, (someone managed to ram their boat into Steve Bass’s floating home pontoon!!), the team managed to cover non-technical events.

A warm summers evening at Marston Vale Country Park saw a strong turnout from Bedford & County AC and several winning performances at the Marston Forest 5k.  The flat course and favourable conditions meant many athletes across the age groups set new PBs.  Paul Mizon took the lead from the gun and maintained his position for a winning time of 16:03 closely followed by Henry Bambrick in second (16:06).  Sam Bosher (17:16) was first U17 and Andy Blair (18:36) first V50.  Charlotte Kent (19:17) was second overall in the women’s race with Ellie Harper (20:28) taking the win in the female U17 category.  Both men’s (Paul Mizon, Henry Bambrick, Daniel Foster) and women’s (Charlotte Kent, Ellie Harper, Sophie Hing) teams won the overall team prizes with the men’s B Team 3rd (Paul Cooper, Sam Bosher, Oliver Wilson).

A warm and sunny Saturday saw 20 U13 and U15 girls make the trip to Woodford Green for the 2nd match in the YDL. This was again a tough competition for the youngest members of our club as we are in a division with teams from Brighton, Cambridge Harriers, Crawley, Herne Hill and Woodford Green and as usual all the girls gave everything they had in every event they took part in and came away with 19 personal bests and 1 season’s best.