Whilst many students see the end of term and summer holidays as an opportunity to sit on a beach in some far-flung exotic location, many DUAXC members have been working hard to reach some fantastic peak performances.
Outgoing athletics captain Oli Robinson put in a tremendous performance to win the 400m hurdles at the Northern championships in a time of 52.93. He then took part in the UK trials for the World Championships, a great achievement in its own right, even if he did miss out on going to Berlin.
Tommy P, another recent Durham alumni (feels strange saying that), has been putting in some excellent performances. On 23rd June he ran a 1:55.04 800m race for a pb, only to beat it again a few weeks later with a 1:54.64. Whilst he was in the mood for pb’s he beat his best 1500m time with a 4:01.65 on 21st July.
Matt Proctor saw the benefit of a post-exam trip to America as he saw 3 pb’s tumble; An 8:29.74 for 3000m on 7th July, 3:59.08 for 1500m, and then he ran 5000m in 14:36.6 on 25th July, which is an improvement of 50 seconds in just a few months!
New athletics captain Owen Walpole has been putting in some impressive 800m times, posting 1:54.7 down in Exeter on 30th June, a two second pb for him.
Next year’s club president, Becky Howarth has also been joining in the pb fun; 4:39.56 for 1500m, 10:10.69 for 3000m and 18:02.14 for 5000m. The last of which earned her 5th place in the Northern championships, a superb performance.
Finally on 1st July I/Tom Beach (not sure how you should refer to yourself) ran a 10k in 37:28, which is a pb for me by two minutes, but I hadn’t run the distance for over a year. I have also run in a local fell race, where despite only getting 2 hours sleep the night before I managed to come third.
I feel this article needs a picture in it, so here is me in said fell race about to overtake a man in such a world of pain that he has flung his top off.
(Image courtesy of qwertyphoto.com)
So well done to everyone who has caught the pb bug, I have used almost all the synonms for fantastic in my thesaurus as there have been so many amazing results. If you have been racing during the summer and haven’t been mentioned here, or if you have and I’ve made a mistake with your results please email me: t.p.beach@dur.ac.uk
