Ollie flies through the air!
20 year old Twins Ollie and Elise Thorner have again been in track and field action in California for their Universities in major regional team competitions. Ollie recorded several pbs at his decathlon and his next competition will be the British Championships next month (June). Meanwhile Elise has been recording good times over the middle distances and looks forward to National Championships in Oregon. Finlay Downes has been running well too, a 5k pb followed by a huge 1500m pb on the track. Read on for news of Harrier training sessions & Club Membership as we approach 150 paid up members (so far). Also, get ready for the Baltonsborough 5mile road race in August!
A few weeks ago (14th/15th May) Ollie Thorner started in his first senior decathlon in championships held in Los Angeles. He has already posted some good early season individual event performances as part of his recovery from injury back in January.
This report from Al:
“In the first of the weekends ten events, he ran his first ever sub 11 second clocking in the 100m running 10.87 seconds. Solid performances followed over the rest of the afternoon culminating in a sub 50 second clocking in the 400m (49.86) and this positioned him in 3rd place out of the 12 starters, ending with a personal best Day 1 score of 3815 points.
He started Day 2 with a big personal best in the 110m hurdles (15.30 seconds), followed up with more personal bests in the javelin (52m 51) and pole vault (4m 80cm) which took him securely up to the silver medal position. Finishing off with the 1500m in 4 mins 41 won him the silver medal with a total of 7388 points, the 7th best performance of all time by a University of Washington student.
Elise also had a busy weekend for the University of New Mexico competing in Regional Track Championships in Fresno, California. Looking to gain maximum points for her University, doubling up in the 1500m and 800m was a tall order with only a two hour gap between Friday’s two heats. She eased through to the 1500m final with a 4 mins 28 clocking but missed out on the 800m final clocking 2 mins 10 in her heat. Going into the 1500m final the following day she finished in a very creditable 6th place in 4 mins 26secs.
This next focus for Ollie will be the British Championships being held in Manchester in July. However, Elise will be looking to gain a place in the prestigious National College Finals being held in Oregan in June.”
The British Athletics Championships take place at the SportCity Manchester track on 25th-27th June 2021. There should be some coverage on the BBC. Good luck to Ollie at these National Championships!
Meanwhilse, U15 Finlay Downes, one of our regular Thursday evening training group members, recorded an excellent 1500m track pb this past week (25th May) – 4.45 at Exeter. This followed on a sub-18 clocking (pb) over 5k in the past few weeks too. V55 Jon James, one of the Club’s senior coaches also had a good run for 4.36 in the same 1500m race.
Competition coming up:
BMC meeting at Millfield on Saturday 29th May – a number of the Harrier juniors will be competing and we wish them well. Please send any report & good photos to Paul for the website.
This coming Sunday (30th May) would traditionally have been the Harrier supported Wells Fun Runs. Alas, these are sadly not happening this year due to Covid-19 restrictions, but there are a few other road, off-road and fell races now coming up:
Thursday 15th July 7pm Paul is putting together two Harrier teams of 6 (12 in total) for a multi-terrain 10k race along the Parrett from Langport. Please contact him to express an interest. One fast team and one not so fast team.
Wednesday 4th August eve Haselbury 10km trail race. Enter on line see link here
Monday 30th August morn Baltonsborough 5milre road race & junior races. See link here for details.
Over the summer period: Paul has a list of off-road races in Dorset and fell races on Dartmoor for any that are interested.
TRAINING UPDATE
We have now been advised that the Millfield track will be available soon but we are in discussions with the School about start times etc so until then we will continue to run our Monday junior & Thursday older juniors and seniors at Strode Sports Centre on the grass. When we have confirmation of being able to hire Millfield track we will post up on this website and, hopefully, be able to give one weeks notice to those who train regularly with us.
The June training schedule for the Thursday session which Jon James designs is here:
Meanwhile the Wells Harrier training groups continue to expand with the latest addition being the Wednesday evening beginners and returners to running group from Wells Rugby Club. Full details of all sessions on the Club website training tab.
This last Wednesday (26th May) saw the latest in the end of the month pub runs organised by the Wednesday group. Some 25-30 runners set off from the Ring of Bells, Wookey for their 5 mile run before eating at the pub.
There was a road and an off-road option for those who attended. Many thanks to the leaders of the two groups. If there are any Wednesday runners who haven’t yet re-joined or joined the Club for the first time please send in your membership forms asap.
Below: The Wednesday off-road group on their pre-pub run last Wednesday (photo by Richard)
MEMBERSHIP UPDATE – Now approaching 150 paid up members
Some of the teething problems with the England Athletics Membership database now seem to have been resolved. I know the EA staff have been working hard behind the scenes to make sense of it all.
If, as a previous Club member, you still cannot find an email asking you to pay then please contact Paul asap as within the next few weeks we will assume non-payers have resigned from the Club. New members are invited to send in their new members form to register with the Club and benefit from the insurance, the Club's training sessions, reduced price kit and the subsidised social activities,
We are already looking forward to our pre-Xmas social and may be able to sneak in another social event before then, if Covid-19 rules permit!
Welcome to all of our newly signed up members!
Other News you might have missed
May 2021 - Harriers excel on the track at Spring open
May 2019 – Elise into European top ten whilst Christian finishes top ten at tough Fell Race
May 2018 - Great Running by all at the Wells Fun Runs