District Indoor Championships: Day Two

Phil Dolan's middle distance runners were in action on the second day of the West District Indoor Championships in Kelvin Hall on Sunday. Senior Iain Robertson set a new indoor pb of 2:02.5 which is only 0.6 outside his outdoors best and he should surely be inside two minutes this summer. Put together with his 1500 metres on Saturday, it is clear that he is in good shape at present and his running will be interesting in the National 4K Championships. In the Under 17 age group, Peter Bowman was third in the final in a new indoor pb of 2:05.8 and is now heading towards the schools indoor championship. Unlike many in his age group he is training at a sensible level with plenty of room for improvement as her gets older: far too many young athletes train too hard and too often. Tony Dolan, first year Under 15,was a bit below his best with 2:39.5 but the seeding was not good and his Heat had many more of the fastest and most mature runners around than the next Heat where he might actually have run faster. He realises this and is looking forward to his next outing.

The 'Nae Luck Award' had to go to first year Under 13 athlete Rachel Busby who was fifth in her Heat and did not make the Final. Then the officials discovered that two of the girls in front of her were actually Under 15's and they were disqualified. This meant that Rachel had actually qualified for a major final. But the announcement was made so late that she had gone home. It is pretty poor that when they do things like check spikes so thoroughly for every athlete and every race, they haven't checked the ages on forms submitted at least two weeks before the race. However, Rachel is young and with her talent should do well. She has time yet to show them.

Finally, well done Phil - the youngsters are clearly among the best in the Local Area judging by the Championship results below and we're now looking forward to the Nationals!