Welcome to Loftus Athletic Club

London Marathon Entries
This year the club has 2 London Marathon entries up for grabs. Anyone who has tried to enter and has been rejected please let yourself be known by either an email to me, Catherine at [email protected] or tell Tony or Neil at training on Tuesday or Friday.
We'll do a draw at the Christmas do to find the lucky two!
If you have had the entry from the club in the last 3 years you can't be eligible for the number again unless no one comes forward with rejected entries. If no one does come forward anyone who does fancy the run can be entered into the draw. Lets say a deadline to come forward with a rejected entry will be the Poultry Run, after that anyone who has had the number before or who fancies the race can then put themselves into the draw, watch this space!
PS This isn't a 'free' number I'm afraid, just a guaranteed entry.

Newsletter - March 2009

(All previous News items are archived - left hand column)

CAPTAINS COLUMN - MARCH

Hi to you all - hope that we are all going well and the hard winter training will pay dividends now that spring is in the air ,the light nights on the way and running becomes more pleasurable again with the prospect of sun on our backs.

With most of our racing taking place on the roads in the summer it would be good to see a few more faces on the start lines and the prospect of team prizes a better possibility and also April will see the launch of our new club championship and championship events to encourage participation - I will keep you well informed !.

Cross Country

With the cross country season almost at an end ,We have one more fixture remaining in the NYSD League

(March 15th -Richmond ) and if we continue to get the numbers out that we have all season then we should be celebrating a Mens/Womens League title double. Since my last Column we have had two fixtures -our own at Whitby with Alec a comfortable winner leading the Men to an easy team Victory and the ladies although depleted still managed a good team position (see Tony's full report )

After that it was on to a very fast and shorter course at Blakeston School where New Marske dominated the high places in the men's event led home by Ricky Stevenson but once again we packed up well and got a good second place and almost ensured the title thanks on the day to Dave 6th, Lewis 7th, Dan 11th, Steve 26th, Dave Collett 29th and also counting for the team Paul 31st.

The Women were once again too strong for the opposition and were comfortable winners counting on the day were Julie 6th, Nicola 7th ,Megan 8th and Julia Jackson in 19th.

We had good representation in the Yorkshires at Rotherham where congratulations went to Alec Duffield an excellent 5th position and to Lewis Rodgers coming 5th in the Junior men and Megan 4th Junior women and all winning their Yorkshire Vests.

Next was the Northerns where I was the only senior entry for the club and after two had weeks of racing I have never felt so tired in a race ploughing through a continious field of mud where I came 97th.

The Yorkshire Veterans scene has proved to be a very competative standard and I have wanted the club to be involved for some time and after a big effort we entered a few teams in the recent Champs at York. Special congratulations to the girls on your success
( see Adele's report ).

Alec was our sole representative at the Nationals and although not fully fit still managed a respectable 63rd and with the event back at Leeds next season we might manage to enter a team.

The Fells

If you fancy a change of scenery then the Northern Runner/NEHAA series is a good well run event organised by Dave Parry ( see NYMAC Web site) and our very own Dan Middlemas enjoying the hills and proving to be a tough competitor and after another excellent Race victory at Clay Bank East he backed that up with another good race coming 3rd at the Commondale run which all but ensures that the overall Winter series prize is his - well done Dan, and with the Summer Series starting on the 21st April at Carlton Bank we might get a few more entries -most are Tuesday Nights so could act as good training workouts.

The Road

Even though the first few months of the year are traditionally off the tarmac, two cracking road races have already being and are always over subscribed within a few weeks of the entries coming out, the first was the Brass Monkey Half marathon held at York on the same day as our NYSD XC at Whitby and even so we managed an incredible entry at York with 13 runners on a fine sunny winters day.

Leading home the club was Dave Parkin who achieved a PB for the distance of 73.24 mins, followed by Tom Herbert who is starting to get back into his running with a creditable 86.01 mins followed then by Stew Darge (91.06mins) and a excellent run by Jo Abbott in 98.14 mins ,others also completing the event were Peter(98.45), Jo Swales (99.15 ) ,Andy (102.32), Colin (102.48), Gary (103.53), Adele (103.54), also Don, Chris and Allister.

The other race is a superb fast 10 miler in February at Pocklington Where we had Stewart 66.42 , Dave Horness 69.55, Don 81.48 and John Risley in 85.10.

We also had a few runners at the Norton 9 miler where the Abbotts were busy again along with Jo Swales who continues to improve clocking 64.31 mins for the unusual distance.

Keep up the good work

Dave