Author Archives: Steve

Goodwood – Hampshire League 2 of 5

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The weather was certainly better at Goodwood this year than it was last year, that said we may have avoided horizontal rain, but we didn’t avoid gale force winds, all adding to the difficulty of the course. Going in to the race Robbie was keen to do better than his HL 2014 debut 4th place, and he succeeded in that desire coming 2nd to Zac Mahamed (14’24”) on the day. The U15 boys race had 54 runners competing 11 short of the numbers that competed in the 1st Hampshire League event of the season, but it was still a strong field in hard windy conditions.

The top 10 included 3 AFD runners, Robbie Coupland – 2nd (14’29”), Ollie Percival – 5th (14’46”) and Sean Pocknee – 7th (14’54) a great performance all round for AFD with Marcus Shantry finishing 11th and Tom Naisby finishing in 29th.

So the current team standings are: (All races count)
1st AFD
2nd Southampton
3rd Reading
4th Portsmouth
5th Wimborne

Current League Individual Standings (Drop 1 result)
= 1st Tom Bourne (Wimbourne)
= 1st Zac Mahamed (Southampton)
3rd Robbie Coupland (AFD)
=4th Chey Kemp (Reading)
=4th Lachlan Wellington (Portsmouth)

Stampede to the first corner

Stampede to the first corner

National XC Relays – Mansfield

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XC Season is here and after watching the XC Relays for the last 2 years in very cold, very wet conditions it was a pleasant surprise to find sunshine in Mansfield, it didn’t last all day, but it was nice when it came out.

AFD had some great results on the day, topped by an exceptional 1st place performance from the U17 boys; Jack Boswell, Nathan Gibson and Jake Cvetkovic, Jake completing his leg in an amazing sub 9min time.

The U15’s had a lot to live up to, a slight change to the relay team saw Marcus Shantry drafted in for the second leg, with Ollie Percival starting and Robbie once again completing the anchor leg. All three boys had a great run, with excellent times, the start was chaotic, crowded and very physical with the pushing, barging and falling bodies effecting Ollie’s placings on the first leg, but not his actual run.

As mentioned the lads had a great race with Ollie finishing in 16th place in a great time of 6’31”, Marcus moving the team up to 7th place with a time of 6’42” and Robbie running the anchor leg in to finish 6th in a time of 6’35”

A respectable 6th place finish in the National XC Relays.

A respectable 6th place finish in the National XC Relays.

Farley Mount – Hampshire League 1 of 5

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On Saturday 11th October, whilst I sat in the airport in Alicante Robbie was beating the turf in the 1st Hampshire League match of the season, held at Farley Mount, Winchester.

From Robbie’s account the course was good, but hard on the legs, apparently his quads felt like lead post a hard hill session at his Thursday training. Even so he went out strong, battled hard and finished in a very respectable 4th place. An amazing run by Tom Bourne had him finishing the race 19 seconds in front of second place in a time of 14’44”. Congratulations to Zac Mahamed (2nd – 15’03”) and Chey Kemp (3rd – 15’09”) a good start to the season. Robbie’s 4th place time was 15’15”, 18 seconds in front of 5th place. Congratulations also to the other AFD runners, Ollie Percival (8th – 15’32”), Marcus Shantry (10th –  15’34”), Billy Smith (18th – 15’55”), Sean Pocknee (26th – 16’27”), Tom Naisby (32nd – 17’07”), Matt Oakley (33rd – 17’09”) and Oliver Farnfield (41st – 17’58”).

Overall a great club performance (first 3 club runners count toward the team score) with the following standings across the age groups.

U13 Girls – 4th
U13 Boys – 1st (Special mention for Luke Van Oudtshoorn, AFD, who finshed 35 seconds in front of second place)
U15 Girls – 3rd
U15 Boys – 2nd
U17 Women – 4th
U17 Men – 1st
U20 Women – 1st
U20 Men – 1st
Senior Women – 1st
Senior Men – Div 1 of 3 – 2nd
Veteran Women – 4th
Veteran Men – Div 1 of 2 – 1st

Picture to follow. (Sorry Martin I keep losing them.)

National Road Relays 2014

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After a great performance in the Southern Road Relays AFD headed up to Sutton Park in Birmingham to try for a repeat performance. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, despite some good performances they ultimately finished 8th on the day. Some excellent performances swayed the overall results with the top three performances on the day coming from Callum Abberley from Burton AC(12:20), Chey Kemp from Reading AC(12:27) and Joseph Pollard from Charnwood AC (12:28). Robbie anchored the AFD A team making 5 places up on the 3rd and final leg to secure the 8th place position, finishing with a time of 12:48, making him the 5th fastest in the 3rd leg, and 15th fastest overall. Altogether a good performance, but more is yet to come, roll on the National XC relays.

Robbie in his War Paint entering the final straight.

Southern Road Relays 2014

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Robbie’s 6th outing in the Southern Road Relays for AFD, sees him anchoring up the U15 A Team. A strong field of young men, with an exceptional team of boys from Shafstbury sees Robbie start his 4th leg in 4th position, well behind the Shafstbury leading team, and some seconds behind the 2nd and 3rd place runners. Robbie starts of hard and is quickly closing down the gap between him and 3rd place, but Chey Kemp of Reading, in 5th place is closing the gap to Robbie even quicker, and as they disappear behind the second row of trees Chey is right on Robbie’s shoulder. A large loop later and the boys come blasting back in to the arena, Shafstbury still way out in front, but now Robbie is in second place, with Chey Kemp happy to sit on his shoulder, the down hill stretch, and the road to the finish begins, Chey overtakes Robbie but no one else is close so it becomes comfortable Bronze for the AFD boys. Looking at the talent available, getting a medal of any form was a real bonus. Well done AFD.

AFD A Team – (Order of appearance – times approx. not official)
Ollie Percival (9’47”)
Will Brockman (10’14”)
Billy Smith (10’11”)
Robbie Coupland (9’42”)

Final Team Positions
Shaftsbury
Reading
AFD

Robbie’s Winter 2014/15 Event Timetable

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Robbie’s Winter 2014/15 Event Timetable
 
This page should form the definitive statement of events and results for Robbie in 2014/15. As dates change I will update them here, as results come in I will add them here.
 
A one stop shop 🙂
 
 

Date Event Location Ind. Pos. Team. Pos.  Time Dist Awards 
20/09/2014 Southern Road Relays Rushmoor Arena, Aldershot L4-3
7th		 3rd 9:41.0 2.99 Team
Bronze
05/10/2014 National Road Relays Sutton Park, Birmingham L3-5
15th		 8th 12:48 3.86
11/10/2014 Hampshire League (1 of 5) Farley Mount, Winchester 4th 2nd 15:15 4.0
01/11/2014 National XC Relays Mansfield L3-8
31st		 6th  6:35.3  2.0
08/11/2014 Hampshire League (2 of 5) – County Selection Goodwood 2nd 1st 14:29 4.0
18/11/2014 Senior District XC Championships Lord Wandsworth College (14:00) 3rd N/A 14:08 3.4 Individual
Bronze
29/11/2014 BA UK XC Challenge (1 of 4) Liverpool 11th N/A 9:57 3.0
06/12/2014 Hampshire League (3 of 5) Popham Airfield, Basingstoke 5th N/A 12:49 4.0
13/12/2014 Southern Inter Counties XC Horspath, Oxford (12:25) 12th 3rd 15:41 4.0 Team
Bronze
26/12/2014 AFD 5k Handicap Aldershot 11th
7th		 N/A 16:37 5.0  
03/01/2015 Hampshire County XC Championships Fleming Park, Eastleigh 3rd N/A 15:10 4.35 Individual
Bronze
10/01/2015 Hampshire League (4 of 5) Prospect park, Reading 6th N/A 13:23 4.0
17/01/2015 Hampshire Schools XC Championships Southampton 10th 1st 4.4 Team
Gold
07/02/2015 Hampshire League (5 of 5) Kings Park, Bournemouth N/A 3rd N/A N/A N/A
07/02/2015 Hampshire League N/A 5th 1st N/A N/A
Team Gold
Ind. Bronze
21/02/2015 English National XC Parliament Hill, Hampstead 40th 12th 17:08 4.5
07/03/2015 BA UK XC Challenge (4 of 4)
Inc. English Inter-Counties 		 Cofton Park, Birmingham 22nd 3rd 17:56 5.0 Team Bronze

 

AFDAC – The John Hewitt Memorial – Junior Club Championships

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Sunday 7th September saw the first ever John Hewitt Memorial – Junior Club Championships, the championships devised by the AFDAC Young Leaders was hosted in remembrance of John Hewitt who died earlier this year. John has been involved with Athletics, local community and AFD for a long time, and the Young Leaders felt that something should be done to remember him. With that in mind they set about devising, planning and ultimately hosting the first ever Championships.

The day was great, weather was excellent, organisation exceptional. Robbie entered the U15 Boys 1500m Championship Race, on the day the 1500m was run as a single race incorporating U15 boys, U17 boys, U15 Girls and U17 Girls. Robbie went off from the start with a deep intent to ensure that he won, and more importantly beat all the girls 🙂 An aim he managed to succeed in. Ultimately the time wasn’t spectacular 4’30.8″ but given that he’d run in excess of 20k during his morning training session it was pretty good.

Congratulations to all the AFD Champions on the day, and to the team that organised the event it was an excellent day out for everyone.

If you’ve got time to look at your watch, you aren’t trying hard enough.

England Athletics national Track and Field Championships

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Day 1 of the National Championships hosted the 800m and 1500m heats, along with the 3000m straight final, restricting all middle distance runners to a single event. Robbie chose the 3000m as his preferred event along with a very strong line up including 6 of this seasons fastest 10 3000m runners. We expected a hard and fast race, and we weren’t disappointed.

Robbie ultimately finished 5th, running a very good tactical race, but by letting the leading group pull a little too far forward he left himself too much to do to get one of those medal places.

Before today only 1 U15 runner in the whole of the UK had run a sub 9’20” 3000m, that runner was Matt Willis, who won today’s race in 9’08”.48. The top 6 runners completing the race in sub 9’20”, with Robbie finishing 5th in 9’18”.24, knocking 11 seconds off his PB. It was quick and all of the top 6 runners, minus Matt Willis got PB’s, and as of now the UK rankings for the top 6 runners exactly match the finishing line up for this race.

3000m National Championships - Field Merging after the first bend

3000m National Championships – Field Merging after the first bend

 

 

National Schools T&F Championships 2014

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It was with great pride that the family Coupland packed up and headed up north for a weekend of athletics at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham. Robbie heading up on Thursday night with the Hampshire team, the pain from his hip now behind him, but a week out of training hanging over him like a dark cloud but a lot of positive thinking and ability assertion had him feeling good about the weekend. Alas though it was not to be, Robbie got boxed in early with the core group of runners, and throughout the race struggled with that position, never really making a positive move to break out of the pack, or at least not making a successful one. In the end, the last lap left him wanting and the final straight showed a Robbie, who to me was simply not anywhere close to fit. Completing his heat in 9th place but with a respectable time of 4’22”. Not a bad time, but ultimately not good enough, not good enough to qualify, and not good enough to score any “standard” points for the county. With Robbie out of the 1500m Saturday, final day, was just about the athletics, and with the disappointment of Friday’s results behind us the chance for the family Coupland, as a unit, to get behind all the athletes was great, and an excellent day of really enjoyable athletics was had.

The Pack - 1500m Heat 2

The Pack – 1500m Heat 2

Picture shows Robbie in 7th place with about 450m to go, had he managed to stick with it, 7th place would have been just enough to qualify, but on the day it was simply not to be.

A zoom in of the Hampshire Team at the Parade Ceremony.

A Panoramic view of the stands and competitors at the Parade Ceremony

Calthorpe Park Sports Day

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Calthorpe run a number of heat events during normal PE lessons to select runners for the finals on Sports Day, the exception to this is the 1500m race, which is run as 2 heats, with the times taken and positions sorted based on time, not on a final. So before Sports Day, Robbie had already won the 1500m, and was down to race in the 800m final/ The Year 9 (Robbie) and Year 10 boys races were merged in to one, obviously with the boys scoring within their own age group only. Robbie went out from the start to try and beat the School Sports Day Record for year 9 currently standing at 2’15”, and his time at the half way point looked very good, Robbie had a convincing lead and was looking very strong running the race from out in front, with Billy Kilcoyne (Y10) in second place but some distance back.

Robbie finished in a new record time of 2’13.89″ breaking the old record, that had stood since 1972.

Heading down the finishing straight for the first time.