Nigel’s Friday Challenge (1)
Welcome to the first in the series of Nigel’s Friday Challenge. ‘Double Maths’ Oh yes, it’s the dreaded double maths session on a Friday! Before attempting the exercises please make sure you have warmed up and stretched – you won’t be able to do them without warming up properly. Exercise 1Take a look at the video clip of Alex;https://bratclub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/alex_clegg_core_ex_1.mp4 The last exercise he does is a ‘Side raise’. One hand on the floor, straight arm to keep the body up, opposite arm up in the air, one leg sitting on top of the other, hips raised up (not sagging in the middle) and his body is straight (head and feet are in a straight line).Once in this position you have to raise the top leg (as Alex does) and hold that position whilst reciting the 4 x table. In other words;Leg up, and shout out “1 x 4 = 4, 2…
BRATs at Home Core Fitness
As we all adapt to the rapidly changing conditions there is still plenty you can do. Just because the world is in lockdown doesn’t mean that your body has to join it. Multi-event athlete Alex Clegg has filmed himself doing a handful of core exercises which you can try indoors in order to build-up, maintain or improve your core strength – see the link below. https://bratclub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/alex_clegg_core_ex_1.mp4 Try each one in turn, do say 5 of each, then 10 of each, then 15 of each – that’s a great starting session for you. Coming SoonAlso watch out for Nigel’s ‘Friday Challenge’.Each Friday, Nigel Clegg will set everyone in the club a challenge based on one or more of these exercises – get practising today as Friday will come around before you know it! Stay safe and stay fit!!!
BRAT Juniors Star at Regional Indoor Final
This is the first year that BRAT have competed in the Sportshall athletics series and we’ve done fantastically well to have juniors from the club chosen to represent Birmingham against the counties of Hereford and Worcestershire, Shropshire and Warwickshire. In the Under 11’s, Evie was really proud to have been selected from BRAT to represent Birmingham. She was asked by the Birmingham Team organiser to be the Girls’ Team Captain! She was selected to compete in 5 events, more than any other member of the team. Her events included 2×1; 4×1 relay; Over and Under relay (hurdles and through a tunnel); speed bounce and standing long jump. She performed fantastically in all – a super effort. Additionally, we had athletes competing in the U13 and U15 age groups in the afternoon session. The U13 girls team came 2nd, just 2 points behind Warwickshire. The U15 girls team also came 2nd.…
Midland Indoor T & F Championships
Ten of our T&F athletes entered the Midland Counties Indoor Championships on February 8/9th at the HPC , Birmingham and in a very successful weekend came away with 3 medals, one of each colour, along with multiple personal bests. Spurred on by being in a warm, dry arena away from storm Ciara, which was lashing the country, Lily Smith continued her magnificent progress in the Long Jump winning the U15 title in a new pb of 5.04m, despite this being her first year in the age group. Mali Lloyd Griffiths, just missed out on a medal by dropping down to 4th in the final round but nevertheless still recorded a pb of 4.83m. Our other medal winning performances came in the senior men’s 60m Hurdles, where 3 BRATs lined up in the final. This was a very close race with only 0.5 s separating all 6 finalists, but in a…
Super Saturday (part 2)
Meanwhile over at the High Performance Centre several junior BRATs were competing in the Midland Indoor Championships.Lilly Smith (pictured above) continued her improvement taking Gold in the U15 Long Jump with a jump of 5.04m. This is currently 12th best in the UK this year and only the 8th BRAT lady (any age group) to ever exceed the 5m mark.Mali Lloyd-Griffiths narrowly missed the podium by just 4cm (about the width of a credit card) finishing 4th in 4.84m. An Excellent start to the 2020 season.
Midland T&F League
These are the dates to keep free for the four senior T&F League Fixtures.As you can see we have a home fixture at the University Track on Sunday 12th July. Help will be required to host this match – more details to follow. Sunday 17th May – AbingdonSunday 7th June – CoventrySunday 12th July – BRATSunday 9th August – Stoke
Heart of England T&F League
More dates to start filling in the blanks in the 2020 diary.There will be three fixtures in the Junior HoE T&F League. Sunday 3rd May – BanburySunday 5th July – CorbySaturday 25th July – Kidderminster and Stourport
Tooth and Claw at Div. 2!
A frantic final day relegation fight between BRAT athletes and the Wolves resulted in success for us… Sunday 4th August saw the final meeting of the Midland Senior Athletics League season at Wolverhampton & Bilston. After the first three meetings Gloucester and Rugby were all but assured of promotion to division one, whilst Coventry were safe in mid-table and Cheltenham had already been relegated. So it came down to a straight fight between BRAT and the Wolves. In what turned out to be a tense affair, Wolves taking an early lead, we somehow managed to overhaul their total with some excellent individual performances and a great overall team effort to finish on an impressive 341 points, just a single point behind Gloucester (342), one ahead of Rugby (340) and most importantly ahead of Wolves on 290. Making BRAT debuts were Rosalie and Rosette Nyanguile, Nicole Travasso, plus Ben Beaumont and…
Concrete Cows and PB Fest
Yesterday afternoon a veritable small army of BRATs headed south to not so sunny Milton Keynes. Not only is MK the host of the (in)famous concrete cows but is also the host of the MK 5000m PB Special Open Meeting. The scorchio conditions from earlier in the week had relented and the rain from earlier in the day had passed, leaving cool calm conditions ideal for distance running. The meeting kicked off at 15:15 with the first of 12 consecutive paced and graded 5000m races culminating with the ladies and men’s elite races which included the England Athletics Champs. The meeting lived up to its name with a flurry of BRAT PB’s or SB’s. 19:48.68 Rachel Farquhar (PB)19:43.69 Eloise Lee (PB)19:39.38 Rob Dowse (SB)19:15.50 Anne Kenchington (PB)18:24.64 Damian Cartland (PB)17:25.83 Chris Burrows (PB)16:46.26 Thanos Tsolakis (PB)16:26.63 Abayomi Adedimeji (PB)16:20.51 Steve Dunsby (SB)15:30.36 Mark Ince (PB)15:15.81 Dan Robinson (PB) Despite feeling unwell Molly…
Lily stars at Wenlock
A small group of BRAT athletes took part in the annual Wenlock Olympian Games, a multi sport festival at Much Wenlock on Sunday July 14th. Star of the games was our U13 G Lily Smith who broke the Long Jump club record for the sixth time this year with a magnificent leap of 4.91m. This places her fifth in the UK this year. She also won the 200m in a pb of 29.1s and came second in the 100m with 14.0s. Her sister May, competing in the same events was 5th in both the finals of the 100m and 200m in 14.9s and 31.6s respectively and 6th in the LJ with 3.40m. Isla O.Connor came 6th in the U13 G 200m, making three BRAT’s in the final,, 4th in the 800m in 2m 58.8s and she won the High Jump with a height of 1.30m. Our other medallists were Jamie…
Success at Wenlock Olympics – Much
Sunday 14th July and several BRATs headed off to the Much Wenlock Olympics open meeting and returned with a haul of medals. Lily Smith – Long Jump 4.91 – Gold, 200m Gold and 100m Silver.Isla O’Connor – High Jump GoldHelen Callaghan – Shot SilverJamie Callaghan – Shot Bronze. All pictured above with May Smith who just missed out on a medal in the 200m. (Note the dog was only spectating !)
Senior T&F League – Mixed Start to Season
After the first two meetings of the track and field season the BRAT team are in fourth place, just a single point above the relegation zone. The first meeting in May saw a number of athletes making their debut for the team; Helen Callaghan, Dawn Gallagher, Claire Fudge, Rachel Brown, Rachel Farquhar, Reuben Kite, Chris Burrows and Matt Pollard. We only had eight women available on the day so it was always going to be an uphill struggle, however we managed to finish fifth and were only nine points behind Wolverhampton in fourth place. Our winners on the day were Alex Clegg who did a treble in the A string of the 110 hurdles, pole vault and shot plus winning the B string Discus. Ren Zhang took the win in the B 110 hurdles and Hannes Petzer won the B shot. With more women available for the second meeting at…