Women:- On the track, Frances Slater in a current rich vein of form performed well in the sprints when competing against some very good older athletes. In the 100 she came second with a time of 12.6 and in the 200 Frances won her race in a new personal best time of 25.0 taking many notable scalps in the process. The time was a National standard time for English Schools and puts Frances in a very good position to perform well in those championships on July 10th / 11th. Frances was supported in the 100 by Emily Stevens who came second in the B string race with a time of 13.1 secs.

The only runner in the 400 was Steph Sattin who came second with a time of 60.4. There were no athletes available for the middle distance races of 800, 1500 and 3000 but in the hurdles races good points were obtained. In the 400 Hurdles both athletes won their races. Emily Stevens won the A string with her second best time of the season – 66.6 secs and then went on to win the B string 100 hurdles race in a new personal best time of 16.4 secs. In the B string 400 Hurdles the continuing improvement from Becca Hore in this event saw her win this race in another new personal best time of 66.7 secs. In the A string 100 Hurdles race Lauren Thompson was 3rd.

In the field events two 4th places were gained in the long jump by Lauren Thompson and Gemma Armorgie jumping 4.86 and 4.19 respectively, High jumpers Jenny Hutchings and Gemma Armorgie both cleared 1.55 to gain 4th and 2nd places and in Triple jump Becca Hore was 6th and Katie Grehan was 4th

In the throws, the highlight was two first places in the Javelin from Peta Lundgren – 43.00 and Katie Grehan – 37.28. In the Hammer Chloe Anne Currie and Katie Grehan were 6th and 5th and in the Discus Sarah Miller 27.66 and Chloe Anne Currie were 4th and 6th respectively. The shot putt saw Peta Lundgren throwing a personal best of 10.70 and Sarah Miller 8.52 to gain 2 second places in that event.

Finally in the relays the squads of Grehan, Thompson, Hore and Slater in the 4 x 100 and Hore, Grehan, Armorgie and Sattin in the 4 x 400 both came 4th in their races.

Men:- The day started with the Long Jump, where we had Anthony Hadgill claim 3rd in the A string with a leap of 6.19m whilst Luke Allen secured a 1st place for in the B string with 5.95m. Shortly followed by the High Jump where both Sam Milner and Alec Wing cleared 1.70m, setting a new PB for Alec.  Alec went on to compete in the 100m and 200m rather than his usual hurdles events. Matt Fernando and Sam also competed in the 100m and 200m respectively, both clocking times marginally behind Alec. Simon Wake ran a strong 400m for us. Luke ran the 100m hurdles finishing in 4th.

Our middle distance runners did well despite the heat. Louis Walshe and Ben Parry ran fast 800m races to secure A string 2nd with a season’s best, and B string 1st place respectively. In the 1500m Jon Kinahan ran a tidy 4min 25.3s whilst in the 3000m Tom Gough set a new PB by 11 seconds to finish in 9min 35.2 sec. In the 2000m steeple chase Peter Townsend came 3rd with 7min 42.2 sec.

Luke and Leo Lundgren competed in the Shot with a 3rd A string and 2nd B string respectively. Luke went on to compete in the Discus with a new PB of 33.22m. Simon threw the Javelin well to earn 2nd place with a distance of 37.45m.

Tim Warner vaulted 2.90m gain 3rd place in the Pole Vault. In the Triple Jump Leo gained 2nd place with a leap of 13.57.

Our 4x100m relay team competed in an exiting race with good clean handovers. Luke ran 1st leg, handing to Matt who passed to Leo, to run the curve, with Sam finishing for us. It was a strong field we were against, but our team did well.

A very exciting finish to the day’s events was the 4x400m relay. Simon started for us, staying on the shoulder of the leader he passed to Alec for the 2nd leg. Alec held 2nd place to pass on to Joe. He took us into the lead before passing to Louis Walshe for the final leg. Louis held the lead, was overtaken at the 200m mark, then dug deep to pull back to take 1st place on the line.

The men’s team was: Alec Wing, Luke Allen, Louis Walshe, Joe Gaynor, Matt Fernando, Tim Warner, Sam Milner, Anthony Hadgill, Ben Parry, Simon Wake, Jon Kinahan, Tom Gough, Peter Townsend and Leo Lundgren.

Overall for the day, combined with the ladies team, Herts Phoenix came 3rd out of the 7 teams competing.

And finally, we'd like to thank the officials who supported us on the day. We had Stuart Broadhead as timekeeper and Adrian Newman as track judge. Judith Hutchings, Sue Armorgie, Sally Stevens, Nicola Miller and Dom Spike assisted me whilst running the two Javelin events that we were allocated. There were also two officials from Braintree who helped us make up the shortfall in numbers.

Men’s Team Manager – Roger Armorgie                  Women's Team Manager - Ian Burrows