With the world cup being over now, and the trophy not making it’s way over here, have no fear because there were quite a few trophies won over in this part of the world this week, and a pretty unexpected prestigious award going along with them.
As the sun is still putting a shift in over here and earning a medal, grab a drink with plenty of ice in it and let me tell you all about what we’ve been up to this week.
Sunday 5th July (Missed Entry) – Cliffe Woods 5 Miler*
A couple of Sundays ago Sarah Nunn travelled over to Rochester to take part in the Cliffe Woods 5 mile race, coming away with a great result, and below is what she had to say about the event:
No cliffs, definitely no woods…just undulating, quiet country lanes for a 5mile run starting and finishing at the City of Rochester primary school.
Passing the towers of Cooling Castle along the route. Finishing in a time of 40m 37 – a minute quicker than last year. 13th female out of 145 and 7th in age category out of 55! A lovely medal, and a finish in the sunshine
Tuesday 14th July – East Kent Relays Event 6: Canterbury
On Tuesday The East Kent Relays series reached it’s crescendo, with a great turnout as always, including a cracking 5 male senior teams.
With decent conditions in the air, a nervous competitive energy all around and a lot of minds already thinking about trophies and picnics we all set off, knowing that this was the last chance to experience this year’s relays and to contribute towards one of the trophies.
I’ll start with on the night relay results and then move onto overall trophies in the next section, and starting with the senior men’s teams, on the night we finished 4th place in the A teams, 3rd place for B (A position we secured 4/6 times), and second place in the C teams, despite my few hiccups.
Our V40 teams finished 4th of the A teams and 5th of the B teams, showing just how strong that category is.
It’s fair to say that V50 is our category, as A, B and C all finished first out of their respective teams, with Thierry, Rob and Paul impressively winning all 6 events with the exact same consistent line-up.
V60 was almost equally as strong with A team finishing first and winning I believe 11 out of their last 12 relay events, with the odd one being a close second.
V60 B were second on the night, with V60 C finishing first, and one of their members looking particularly good for his 60s!
Senior Men
54:10, Folkestone Running & AC A, 13:08 Tom Bean, 14:23 Ian Merrick, 13:48 Joe Bruce, 12:50 Oscar Roach
57:08, Folkestone Running & AC B, 14:07 Phil Hayes, 13:48 Philip Haynes, 14:59 William Parry, 14:12 Jake Parsons
59:30, Folkestone Running & AC C, 14:32 Hugo Kingston, 15:02 Dan McCarthy, 15:02 Jacob Henwood, 14:53 James Barney
01:05:36, Folkestone Running & AC D, 16:11 Oliver Collier, 15:58 Thomas Aspinall, 16:36 Max Khan, 16:49 Jonathan Spencer
01:10:07, Folkestone Running & AC E, 17:19 James Hitching, 16:08 Danny Tomlinson, 17:42 Jake Harvey, 18:56 Jason King
V40 Men
57:13, Folkestone Running & AC A, 13:53 Nick Steele, 14:19 Nick Bryant, 15:21 Stuart Sprinks, 13:39 Simon Ramsay
01:09:02, Folkestone Running & AC B, 16:46 Stuart Erskine, 17:29 Ian Vousden, 18:05 Simon Coffey, 16:40 Don Gilliland
V50 Men
44:21, Folkestone Running & AC A, 14:46 Thierry Bal, 15:00 Rob Collier, 14:35 Paul Bartlett
45:02, Folkestone Running & AC B, 14:50 Tristan Bruce, 15:07 Darren Crew, 15:05 David Hitching
48:55, Folkestone Running & AC C, 15:50 Darren Philip, 16:27 Arthur Parry, 16:37 Stephen Deeming
58:44, Folkestone Running & AC D, 17:59 Karl Letchford, 21:38 Philip Maull, 19:06 Anthony Scott
V60 Men
47:59, Folkestone Running & AC A, 17:44 Andrew Hadlow, 16:06 Torben Jessen, 14:08 Stephen Male
57:17, Folkestone Running & AC C, 20:07 John O’Hara, 20:21 Alan Randall, 16:48 Henry Axon
57:56, Folkestone Running & AC B, 19:08 Royd Powell, 19:40 Clive Allon, 19:07 David Smyth
Now onto the night’s results for the ladies, starting of course with the senior category:
Senior ladies A team finished 4th on the night, with the B team taking 3rd place.
Our V35 ladies really smashed it in Canterbury with both the A and B teams taking 1st place on the night.
V45 was similarly impressive with the A team taking 1st place and all 3 members almost running the same time for incredible balance, and the B team were 2nd place.
V55 teams put in strong performances and both claimed 4th places for A and B.
Senior Ladies
50:19, Folkestone Running & AC A, 17:22 Daisy Wright, 16:05 Ismay Bruce, 16:51 Nicole Dodd
52:22, Folkestone Running & AC B, 17:25 Meg Scott, 16:10 Amy Hudson, 18:47 Amy Axon
V35 Ladies
48:38, Folkestone Running & AC A, 15:57 Kirsty Wilson, 16:27 Rebecca Powney, 16:13 Ivana Collier
57:47, Folkestone Running & AC B, 18:30 Kellie Williams, 20:10 Belinda Hitching, 19:06 Julie Apps
V45 Ladies
52:44, Folkestone Running & AC A,17:30 Catherine O’Connor, 17:38 Louise Hagger, 17:35 Louisa Eede
59:28, Folkestone Running & AC B, 19:50 Pamela Allon, 20:24 Hilary Collins, 19:14 Jody Stoakes
01:11:57, Folkestone Running & AC C, 27:24 Kate Lancefield, 20:06 Diane Parsons, 24:26 Rachel Thomson
V55 Ladies
01:02:02, Folkestone Running & AC A,19:20 Deborah Parmenter, 21:36 Trudi Curd, 21:05 Melanie Powell
01:10:57, Folkestone Running & AC B, 22:23 Deirdre Coombs, 24:30 Julie Gibbs, 24:03 Maria Felicetti
01:17:28, Folkestone Running & AC C, 26:16 Tracey McMahon, 28:15 Margaret Whitham, 22:56 Caron Inder
Now for a round up of our trophies from the overall series:
Senior Men B: 3rd Place
V50A Men: 1st Place
V50B Men: 1st Place
V60A Men: 1st Place
V60 B Men: 1st Place
Senior Ladies B: 2nd Place
V35A Ladies: 3rd Place
V35B Ladies: 1st Place
V45A Ladies: 3rd Place
V45B Ladies: 2nd Place
V55B Ladies: 3rd Place
On top of all this though, as all good cakes need a cherry on top, we together as a team earned the Best Performing Club Shield, which is a collective total of our points and efforts compared to every other club and the winner gets their team name engraved on one of the mini shields.
Everyone who took part this year and contributed should be proud of their efforts as it all helps, and of course the supporters on the side, everyone is important in some way for helping the club achieve great things.
Special shout outs of course go to Nick and Catherine for being team captains, sorting us all out and providing us with bib numbers, and then Henry Axon for making it all happen for us, without his hard work there wouldn’t be events for us to need to field teams for.
And now for one last group shot to wrap up what has been an epic event, and an odyssey of a report section…
Saturday 18th July – Parkrun
Although I’ve already mentioned the world cup ending, I think one last hydration break for old time’s sake might be needed after that last section as any ice from the start of the report should be gone by now, and then it’ll be time to hear all about our Parkrun adventures from this weekend.
Folkestone
Lloyd (Croydon)
| Position | Gender Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 5 | 5 | Krzysztof KLIDZIA | 00:20:59 |
Karpendonkse Plas (Netherlands)
| Position | Gender Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 25 | 21 | Martin SALMON | 00:24:16 |
Blackpool
| Position | Gender Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 288 | 99 | Kate LANCEFIELD | 00:37:57 |
Monsal Trail (Peak District)
| Position | Gender Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 167 | 114 | Philip MAULL | 00:29:11 |
Hastings
| Position | Gender Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 95 | 85 | Simon COFFEY | 00:23:01 |
| 376 | 114 | Sarah SILVER | 00:32:41 |
Walmer and Deal Seafront
| Position | Gender Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 287 | 93 | Elizabeth TEW | 00:32:54 |
Conwy
| Position | Gender Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 6 | 5 | Henry AXON | 00:19:59 |
| 49 | 6 | Amy AXON | 00:24:51 |
Dover Waterfront
| Position | Gender Position | parkrunner | Time |
| 9 | 8 | Asim RAI | 00:19:52 |
| 58 | 9 | Layla DMONTE | 00:25:30 |
| 65 | 52 | Luke HICKS | 00:26:20 |
Sunday 19th July – Southern Athletics League
On Sunday a few of our members made a sunny trip over to Hastings to put the A into FRAC.
They weren’t put off by the heat, as there were PBs all round, and Oscar continuing to show that he will set light to running tracks wherever he goes!
Below is what Lisa Smith had to share about the event:
Spurred on by our Team GB athletes at the Diamond League at the London Stadium yesterday, 3 Folkestone athletics competed at a very hot, sun filled day at the Southern Athletics League at Hastings today.
Lisa Smith – 800m (pb), shot, javelin and relay;
Abigail Smith – javelin (pb), triple jump (pb), high jump and relay; Oscar Roach – 400m (pb), 800m (pb), 1500m and relay
Sunday 19th July – Sandwich 10k
Also on Sunday was one of the hottest 10k races of the year, and I mean that literally, when I did it back in 2024 I had to hide under a tree in shade for about 20 minutes to recover and dry off afterwards.
Still, it’s a lovely scenic route around the town centre of Sandwich and some surrounding countryside and roads.
Ian Merrick described it as a really flat course, with a few twists in the way.
It’s a good one if you don’t mind the heat too much, and the odd few sharp bends and narrow points.
Ian came home with an impressive time of 38:20, and Don Gilliland finished with a nice round time of 44:00 and continued his streak of 10k PBs.
Two years in a row now I’ve reported on the end of the relay season in Canterbury and I have to say this one felt about twice the size of last years’ report, which just goes to show how much FRAC has grown in the past year, and how so many of us have improved and stepped up for the occasion.
Apart from the FRAC Summer handicap, we’re entering a fairly quiet time of the year now before things pick up going into the September/October racing season, so lets all stick to our training and enjoy the sun while it’s still here…