A late night run at Basingstoke track (Down Grange) was preceded by an early evening trip to Pizza Hut for Robbie and I. Nearly 12 hours later and I personally am regretting the chillies scattered liberally all over my Cajun Chicken Pizza.
The standing precedence of rain at Down Grange still stands, despite the race being in the middle of the driest July on record, and half way through a blazing heat wave, it still managed to rain, quite heavily for over 5 minutes.
Anyway, the running.
The Grand Prix is all about personal bests, the middle distance races are provided with Pace makers to try to assist with PB times.
A very tired looking Robbie (10pm) Hampshire Grand Prix 3000m U15 Winner
Robbie’s 3000m race set to start at 9pm, sees the lights on at the stadium as night time starts to fall. Unlike the 12 800m races that went on earlier in the evening, there are only 3 3000m races with Robbie running in the final race, results shown below. Finishing in a new Personal best time of 9:53.56 (Knocking 10 seconds of his previous PB) and winning the Saucony prize for U15B 3000m.
3000m Race 3 (Green entries = Personal Best Times)
| Name | Age | Club | Time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Robbie Coupland | U15B | Aldershot Farnham & District | 9:53.56 |
| 2 | Daniel Cooke | U15B | Camberley & District | 10:00.51 |
| 3 | Bryn Smith | U17M | Aldershot Farnham & District | 10:03.86 |
| 4 | Mark Hayter | SM | Eastleigh RC | 10:08.47 |
| 5 | Steve Marcer | SM | Southampton | 10:19.81 |
| 6 | Archie Ives | U15B | Winchester & District | 10:22.30 |
| 7 | Chris Chambers | SM | Eastleigh RC | 10:29.55 |
| 8 | Matthew Jerrard | SM | Eastleigh RC | 10:31.01 |
| 9 | Lucy Rochford | U17W | Andover | 10:52.39 |
| 10 | Ellie Czura | U17W | City of Portsmouth | 11:12.53 |
| 11 | Neil Catchlove | SM | Unattached | 11:15.03 |
| 12 | Bethany Heddle | U17W | Camberley & District | 11:17.06 |
| 13 | Richard Heddle | SM | Camberley & District | 11:41.19 |
| 14 | Gemma Bigg | U20W | Basingstoke & Mid Hants | 11:52.80 |
Robbie and I did arrive at Basingstoke much earlier than his race, in fact we were in time to watch a number of Robbie’s team mates compete in a round of 800m races, with Billy Smith (U13B) Harry Grace (U15B) , and Stacey Burrows (U15G) getting PB’s. Stacey smashing her PB by 8 seconds and winning the U15 girls 800m prize.
AFD 800m Results (By Age Group)
| Name | Age group | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Billy Smith | U13B | 02:30.3 |
| Harry Grace | U15B | 02:16.8 |
| Stacey Burrows | U15G | 02:20.8 |
| Peony Myall | U15G | 02:26.6 |
| Lizzie Squibbs | U15G | 02:27.7 |
| Hannah Jacobs | U15G | 02:30.5 |
| Will Parrott | U17M | 02:20.5 |
| Evie Grice | U17W | 02:19.7 |
| Tamara Myall | U17W | 02:28.0 |
| Ben Watson | U20M | 01:59.0 |
| Tom Bowerman | SM | 01:55.0 |
| Nick Jacobs | SM | 02:12.4 |
| Charlotte Browning | SW | 02:05.1 |
| Sofie Kent | SW | 02:23.9 |