Birchfield Harriers Young Athletes Open Meeting – 23/04/2022
With the new Alexander Stadium not being quite ready for general use, Birchfield held their annual Young Athletes Open Meeting at the Pingles Stadium in Nuneaton on 23rd April. For many of the young Junior BRATs this was their first taste of competing for medals in a stadium, and across all age groups BRAT won an incredible 28 medals – 12 Gold, 8 Silver and 8 Bronze! The day had promised to be warm, but there was a strong headwind in play which the athletes did well to battle. The U11’s took part in a Quadrathon which consisted of a 75m, 600m, long jump and howler throw, while the older members took part in individual events. 6 of the 13 competitors for the U11 M Quadrathon and 5 of the 11 competitors for the U11 F Quadrathon were BRATs which is an amazing presence and they were able to give…
English Schools XC Champs & Midlands (not quite) 5k Champs!
English Schools XC Champs A small number of BRAT’s achieved the fantastic honour of representing the West Midlands School team and Worcestershire schools at the ESAA English Schools Cross Country Championship’s in Hop Farm, Kent. The weather was more like that of the track season and not cross country, and the course was extremely flat and fast with hardly any mud! The first race of the day to include BRAT athletes was the Junior boys. Jack Price was our 1st athlete home in 191st place, this is a fantastic achievement considering it’s only Jack’s second ever cross country! Niklas Van Mourik was next in 271st place after getting spiked early on in the race. In the Inter boys race we had 3 athletes competing. Will Walker was first home in 135th after being dead last at the start of the race, he was followed home by Morgan Hill in 221st…
BRAT XC Juniors – Inter Counties Cross Country Championships – Loughborough Saturday 12 March
The race is the UK cross country championships and incorporates the UK Cross Challenge Final. The senior and U20 races are used every two years as the World Cross Country Trial race to select the Great Britain teams so its the top domestic race in the calendar. Athletes have to be selected by their counties to compete with 8 running in each of the junior age groups and 9 in the seniors. To even make it to this event, representing the county, is a huge achievement. Well done to the athletes who competed. Some of the races had over 300 competitors! For most it was their first time in a National Championship race so it was a excellent learning experience for their development. U13B Seb Stendall 148th, U13G Alba Smith Pena 242nd, U15B Dylan Teasdale 229th, U17M Alex Dickson 133rd, Alice Stewart 128th. Sen Men Jonny Cullen 263rd & Matt…
Junior biathlon
2 Junior BRATS took part in the British Modern Biathlon Championships in Bath on Saturday 26th February. The event consisted of swimming and a 1600m run. Jemima Jackson finished 7th overall, and took an astounding 15 seconds off of her 1600m time to run a PB of 5.59. U14 Alba Smith-Pena finished 11th over all in her age group with a 1.11 100m swim and a 6.11 1600m run. Congratulations to both athletes.
A final fling for the BRAT Junior XC athletes
This is just a brief summary e-mail to round off all the outstanding junior performances in this season’s cross-country league. As a club, it looks like we have taken a massive step in the right direction, with an overall finishing position, after all fixtures, of 5th place. This is a huge improvement on where we were when the league last ran 2 years ago where we finished 12th. The season before that we were 14th. Looking at the overall results, there is a clear distinction between the larger, well-established clubs and some of the smaller local clubs. I think we have successfully bridged that gap this season and have infiltrated the higher ranks, beating teams such as Birchfield and Tipton. As has been said throughout the series, everyone that took part in the cross-country events this winter has played a role. Every point counts, every position counts. Congratulations to you…
Junior Indoor Opens – weekend of 19th & 20th Feb 2022
The weekend of 19th and 20th February saw a number of Junior BRATS take part in indoor opens. U13 Erin McDaid travelled to Lea Valley for the 60m hurdles where she ran a PB time of 10.84, ranking her 12th in the UK, while other BRATS took part in the MCAA City of Birmingham Games at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham. It was an amazing experience for all, and for some it was their first taste of an indoor arena. There were many PBs across the age groups and disciplines, with a few of the highlights below. 1st year U15 Evie Rendell secured 3 PBs, with a time of 10.73 in the 60m hurdles, a high jump of 1.40m and a shot put of 7m. 1st year U17 Lily Smith ran a PB in the 60m in a time of 8.37 and sister May a PB of 8.78. Further U17…
Record number of BRAT Juniors qualify for the National English Schools Cross Country Championships
Record number of BRAT Juniors qualify for the National English Schools Cross Country Championships. The outstanding recent performances of our juniors in the West Midlands Young Athletes Cross Country League (wmyaccl) have been backed up by another strong showing in the West Midlands Schools XC Championships held in Warley Woods on 22 Jan 2022. On a beautiful sunny day, we had 15 BRAT juniors competing on a hilly course in 4 age groups that differ from those in the league (minor Y7, junior Y8/9, inter Y10/11, and senior Y12/13). In the junior/inter/senior categories a top 6 finish guarantees qualification for the prestigious National English Schools Cross Country Championships at Hop Farm in Kent on 19 March. Athletes in the minor category can enter the primary schools’ National Championships in Prestwold Hall on March 26, but no qualification is needed. In the minor girls’ race Amira finished 5th, while in the…
BRAT JUNIORS – ANOTHER STRONG XC PERFORMANCE
Well done team! Here are the totals after 4 of the 5 league cross-countries: Lots more stats and results here. As you can see, we are in 5th place after 4 events. This is something that we can be proud of, especially given the calibre and history of some of the teams below us. Everyone involved plays a part, so thank you to the coaches, team managers, parents….and of course the athletes themselves. A big shout out to Darcey who managed to lose a shoe at some point on the course and keep going until the end! It may be a tough task for us to catch 4th place overall in our next league XC, but let’s give it everything we’ve got! Bookmark the date in your diary, let’s aim for a record turnout to finish the season! Keep strong, keep training! Individual results as follows can be found below. Note that these…
Junior Awards Ceremony
Due to the ongoing Covid restrictions it was not possible to hold the traditional indoor Awards Evening for all BRAT members. Not to be disheartened, the Junior’s held an outdoor event at the track following their Sunday morning training session. The weather held, the Christmas tunes played, mince pies were eaten and the applause kept coming. A special thanks goes out to Julie Smith for organising the event, Martin Ludford for getting the trophies engraved and set-up and Gordon Ainsley for collating all the results. A collection was made for Birmingham Children’s Hospital, where £100 was raised. Before the awards were announced, Gordon highlighted all the members who had broken Club records – 28 had been broken in total, some multiple times! Congratulations to the following:- Club Record Breakers: James Marshall (Masters) 8 x all at 800m Lucie Tait-Harris (Masters) 7 from 800m to 5000m Karl Welborn (Masters) 5 from…
Another amazing BRAT junior XC performance!
Before I go into how well you all did (yes, you did well!), I want to mention about how you, and we as a team can be even better. This isn’t to take anything away from anyone’s performance, but rather, it’s a sign of how far the team has come. We are challenging the best teams, there’s no reason why we can’t break into the top 3 at the next event. You have 6 weeks until the next league race in Walsall (16th January). 6 weeks is a decent amount of time to put in some consistent training, and maybe add in a few additional races too. With regards to training, you know the drill. Keep consistent and work hard. It will pay off. Talk to the coaches if you want a specific training strategy. All of the coaches bring a wealth of experience and have all run cross-country, we…
Another Inspired BRAT Junior XC Performance!
Warley Woods, race 2. Now, juniors, I know you may feel you worked hard, ran your socks off (or your shoes off, in 2 cases I know of…!), pushed to the line and given it absolutely all you had. BUT…what I have to say is “think of the parents!”. Do you know how hard it is to support at Warley Woods? I saw mums and dads going up and down those hills over and over again, toddlers and pets in tow, screaming at the top of their lungs! So, parents, you have my full respect when I say WELL DONE! As for the juniors, yes, I suppose you didn’t do too bad too. In addition to some top 3 and top 10 placings, we had a much strengthened U15 girls team, with 3 of the runners making their season debut. A special mention to Tilly & Katie who kept going…
BRAT JUNIORS’ AMAZING XC PERFORMANCE
What a day out! A few people have contributed to this write-up, but I’d just like to say a huge WELL DONE to everyone that got involved in our first cross-country since 2019. I’m fully aware of how daunting a task it must have been, I did start my athletics journey as a cross-country runner, many (MANY!) years ago after all. No matter how you felt you performed, I, along with the various team managers and coaches thought you did fantastic. Have no doubt, your contribution to the team is absolutely invaluable. As Dan mentions below, every BRAT runner that overtakes someone, knocks a rival team one place down the results! Bookmark the next date, a home fixture for us at Warley Woods on the 14th of November! If you’re not already involved and want to be, e-mail me here. U11 Girls 8 girls toed the line for the first…