Four club records have been broken over the last two weeks.  Congratulations to:

Congratulations to Mark Burgman, who set an M65 Pole Vault club record of 2.50 metres in the SAL at Peterborough on 11th July, and also to Etienne Maughan, who improved her own Under 17 80m Hurdles club record to 11.23 seconds whilst finishing 3rd at the English Schools Championships in Manchester on 10th July.

Congratulations to Jim Burke, who set an M65 club hammer record of 26.28 metres whilst competing in the Eastern Masters league at Cambridge on Wednesday 30th June.

Congratulation to Belinda Sergent, who set a new Senior Women's club triple jump record of 12.27 whilst coming 3rd in the South of England Championships last weekend.  The new mark moves Belinda up to 14th place in the UK rankings.

Sunday 6th June saw Bedford & county’s senior athletes return to league competition for the first time since august 2019, in the first round of the newly created National athletics league.  Following last years cancellation and numerous  format changes made in the last few months, the usual feeling of pre match trepidation was replaced with one of relief that things are slowly returning to a sense of normality.

Matt Leach finished 13th overall, and was the 4th British runner in the British Athletics 10,000m Championships & European 10,000m Cup that was held at the University of Birmingham track on Saturday 5th June.  Matt's time of 28:22.33 was a season's best, and within a couple of seconds of his PB.

Congratulation to Etienne Maughan and Dan Jarvis, who have both broken club records during the last few days.  Etienne clocked 11.26 seconds to go top of the UK U17 80M hurdles rankings and smash the Club record into the bargain. She was delighted to win against high class field at  the Lee Valley Hurdles Fest on 31st May.  Dan broke his own 3000m Steeplechase club record at the Manchester Invitational meeting on 27th May.  Dan's new mark is 8:39.49.

Congratulations to Dan Jarvis, whose  5:43.8 for 2000m Steeplechase at the Steeplechase Fest in Bury St Edmunds on 15th May is a new club record, breaking Simon Goodwin's longstanding mark of 5:49.4, which was set in July 1981.

Jack Goodwin became the first Bedford and County athlete to return to action on 31st March.  Competing in the Comeback 5000m at Battersea Park, Jack clocked  an excellent 14:13.96 to finish seventh in a very high quality field in what has his first track race for three years.

Gracie Wall stormed to a new U15 Pentathlon club record at Yeovil on 4th October, despite atrocious conditions of persistent heavy rain, strong winds and temperatures which were as low as nine degrees and never rose much above eleven degrees.

There were good performances over 1500m from three Bedford and County athletes at the Harrow Race Night on Thursday 24th September.  Alex Alston (U17) won race eleven in a new PB of 3:59.17.  In the same race Jamie Webster (U20) finished second in a season’s best of 4:03.38, and Harry Brodie (U20) came seventh in a PB of 4:06.95.  At the same meeting, Paul Mizon set an 800m PB of 1:59.52 whilst finishing 3rd in race 11.  At the Nuneaton British Milers Club meeting on 18th September, Ed Blythman (U20) set a 1500m PB of 4:05.22 whilst winning the F race.  On the same day, but a little further up the age scale, Charlie Palmer (M40) had an excellent run in the New Forest Arnold Clark Half Marathon, finishing second in 1:20.02.

A small contingent of Bedford and County athletes made the trip to Loughborough to compete in the Charnwood A.C. open on 16th September.  Nathan Cox came second in the fastest 200m race of the night, clocking 22.76.  Nathan also ran 11.50 over 100m.  Under 17 Daniel Harding-Forbes won his 100m race in 11.85, and clocked 23.81 whilst coming second in his 200m.  Fellow under 17, Jasmine Wilkins, won her 100m race in 12.85, and also ran 26.58 over 200m.  All the sprint races were run into a stiff headwind.  Jamie Webster won a somewhat bizarre 800m that included a close shave with an official and a trolley (fortunately no one was seriously injured!) in 2:00.18.