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Photography (and writing) by Tom Phillips |
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Moving Mountains |
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E-mail: tomp2@tiscali.co.uk |
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A bit of a blog |
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My earlier blogs (before August 2008) are now here: Click to read My blogs from August 2009 to November 2009 are here: Click to read December 2009’s blog is here: Click to read The latest blogs are here: Click to read |
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Stormy weather. Mid August 2008
I’ve had a lot of wind this year. No, not what you are thinking! It seems that almost every time I have raced, since the beginning of June, there has been a strong headwind at the track. It was awful at the Great Britain Masters championships in July, resulting in my personal worst electronic time ever for 100m, though I was content with 6th place in both 100 and 200m given the strength of the opposition, and the reality that I’m 54, and they were all younger than me! Ironically, the British Olympic trials were held at the same track the following week, where a following wind was the problem! By the way, they forgot to give the wind reading for the Birmingham M50 100m final on the results. It was a headwind of 5.0 metres/second. Dire.
Mind you, the European Veterans (ie Masters) Championships in Slovenia didn’t suffer from the wind. Almost flat calm and 32 degrees C. Wonderful for sprinters. I made both the 100m and 200m finals (one better than two years ago at the Europeans in Poland). I was also clear that I wanted to run under 25 seconds for 200m, and knew that I’d probably need to do this in the 200m semi final if I was going to make the final. Job done. I ran 24.99 for fourth place in the semi. Until I saw the printed results, I was fearful they would round the time up to 25.00, but it stands. My fastest time since I started racing again in 2001. As you will see elsewhere on this web site, I was pretty busy as photographer, too!
Domestic racing has been ok, but my own race times have been ruined by the winds. Blackheath & Bromley men have again made the Southern Counties League final on 6 September. Our women’s team missed out by just one point. I’m hoping I get to that competition. For the week beforehand, I am at the European Masters Games in Malmo, Sweden. I have the M50 200m there at 16.55 on Friday 5 September, and a 19.15 flight home. Straight to the Ashford track next day! Fingers crossed.
Tom |
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Previously….
Season’s End 2008
My last Blog entry saw me at the point of departure for the first ever European Masters Games, in Malmo, Sweden, with a tight deadline for getting home again afterwards. Well, all went well. Very well.
EMG was a great event. It was a multi-sport gathering, rather like a mini Olympic Games. Track and field athletics was only one of more than a dozen sports involved. The general standard of organisation, and the facilities provided were really very good, from what I saw. Entries were best described as “modest” for the track and field events, but I had no problem with that. Just because the Games carried the tag “European” didn’t mean they had to be a rival in size to the European Masters Championships held just on a month previously. This date clash was unfortunate, but then the Games were not built around the needs and wants of Masters Athletics alone, were they? Some countries supported EMG very well, and there were some outstanding performances, too.
The Helenenholm stadium in down-town Malmo was very adequate for the competitions. The standard of local organisation was first class. The whole week stayed dry, and very sunny for most days. Pity about the wind (see previous Blog), which followed me to Sweden and bugged my 100 and 200m races there too! I won the M50 100m and 200m in Sweden. This was nice, of course. The headwind in the 100m was tolerable, but I’d have preferred the flat calm conditions the decathletes had enjoyed a couple of days earlier. By the time the 200m took place, there was a real southerly gale blowing most of the day. Sadly, the wind gauge at the track was nicely screened from this by the seating in the finishing straight. This meant that we had to battle round the turn into a fierce headwind of (I’d guess), -6 or -7 metres per second, only to find that the faint breezes that had eddied around the wind gauge gave official readings of a very slight following wind! There’s no justice.
I’d been more nervous about my journey home than anything. I was due to race in the Southern Counties Masters League Final at home on the day after the 200m final in Sweden. I had barely two hours between my 200m and the departure time of my flight from Malmo. Well, suffice it to say that I won the race, was presented with my gold medal, booked a taxi, and travelled to Malmo airport all within an hour of the gun! It was only then that the airline told me the flight was delayed by three hours! I eventually arrived home at one o’clock in the morning, still in my track-suit. By 9.30am, my body was at the Julie Rose Stadium for the League Final. Not sure where I’d left my brain, though.
And the Final reserved for me some of the strongest winds of the “summer”. I was blown (backwards) to my slowest 100m and 200m times for several years. Why don’t these winds ever blow from behind? The Final was good competition, held in grim conditions. Blackheath and Bromley retained their men’s title, which was very rewarding. I went straight back to bed.
I ended the 2008 season a couple of weeks later with good times to win both the 100m and 200m M50 races at the Kent Masters Championships. Turn-out was poor, though. Having these races so late in the season is a problem.
A few weeks rest now.
Tom September 2008
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Midwinter musings
Winter draw(er)s on, as they say. The period from the end of September through to early January is the longest spell of the year for me with no competitions, and is the time to get down to serious things like strength training and conditioning. And by and large, as I pen this in mid February, it all seems to have gone well. I only missed a few days due to a cold, though I converted several intended track training sessions into additional gym work when the temperatures dropped (and stayed) below freezing in December and January. Not cowardice; I just wasn’t going to be able to train fast and keep adequately warm. My body fat levels seem to have fallen quite a bit in the last year, and I now find I feel the cold far more than ever I did when, for example, I was serious about my cross-country skiing.
My 2009 return to competition came at the coldest weekend of the winter, but on the cosy indoor track at Brunel University. All went to plan, though I found myself asleep on the blocks in both 60m races. Two weeks later, at Sutton Arena, it was time for three more races. My starts were a shade better, and I was faster. I think I even headed the UK M50 rankings at 60m for a short while. Pleasing for someone who turns 55 in less than a couple of months. I managed a couple of medals at the SCVAC Championships, and have an EVACs open meeting coming up very soon. It will then be time for my M50 swansong at the BMAF Championships. That will complete my competitive preparation for the European Masters Championships in Ancona, Italy, later in March. A delightful prospect, as these begin just three days after I turn 55.
Tom February 2009 |
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A Spring in my Step!
At the British Masters Indoor Championships in early March, I surprised myself. I’d not made the finals of the 60 metres for two years, but this year, not only got that far, but then ran 7.82 for fourth place. This was the fastest I’d run since the World Indoors in Linz in March 2006. Mind you, my 200m times were still dire, even though I ran well enough for fifth place in the final. I just kept consoling myself with the thought that, with the European Championships in Ancona still more than a fortnight away, I was sure I’d not peaked yet!
Ancona was fun, and hard work. A major championships over a week demands a whole additional level of effort and personal organisation than domestic competition. Roughly double those demands when you add in the fact that I also spent the whole time as one of the official photographers for the European Veterans Athletics Association, and for the Great Britain Masters Team. Lesley Richardson was there in a similar capacity, and has many good pictures, too.
The Championships took place in a very modern and well-equipped stadium, and, overall, they were extremely well run. I had good hopes in the 60m, being just three days into the M55 age group, but got eliminated in the semi-final. However, it finally all came right in the 200m. I won my heat, took third in my semi-final, and fifth in the final. I was one of three Brits in that final. The winner, Steve Peters, set a new European M55 record. The week was capped by a silver medal in the 4x200m relay. I was really pleased with my lead-off leg in the relay, but overall, we didn’t quite manage to hold the German team off, and lost the gold by 7/100ths of a second. That’s around six inches after 800m of flat-out sprinting.
There were several occasions in Ancona where I had to be really strict with myself, and put the “athlete” head on very firmly. This meant that there were big chunks of the action when I wasn’t taking photographs. I was quite impressed with Fotostudio5, whose team were taking photos for sale at the event. I bought six or seven pictures from them, too. The Fotostudio5 web site is good and easy to use, and includes everything they shot in Ancona.
I’m writing this stuff about a week after Ancona, on the day of the tragic L’Aquila earthquake. My thoughts go to any Italian friends living in that area. I am rather enjoying about two weeks off training and racing, to allow my body to recover, though I currently seem to have found plenty to do to fill the time, so I’m not getting as much rest as I’d perhaps hoped! The summer track season is just three weeks away….
Tom April 2009 |
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Summertime…
Looks like we’re getting one this time, but why are so many tracks built with the home straight facing the prevailing wind?
It’s been an unusual start to the track season. Kent Masters League began early, and I regret that I had to run a 400m in the second fixture. To rub salt into that particular wound, I had to race in the M35-49 age group too. Ouch. Then there was an unusual gap, and I got a holiday – no running involved!
Then it was back to business, with Club Championships, and a League match followed two days later by the SCVAC Championships. These suffered from good entries and poor turn-out on the day. Sorry fellow athletes, but that just isn’t good enough. Are there really that many good competitions for Masters athletes that you can pick and choose like that?
I managed a few wins, and some hard races during June, but my times were all off the boil. Mind you, so were those of the guys I beat.
I was ready for a hard weekend at the BMAF national championships at the start of July. Only two races, but I knew I’d be on my feet the rest of the time taking photos. So it transpired. I ran a great 100m. No, correction, I ran a great 99m, and got pipped for second place literally on the line, by just 3/100ths of a second. That’s something like ten centimetres, or four inches in old money.
The 200m next day was a wake up call. I had a hectic morning behind the camera, and raced at around 2pm. Unusually for me, I completely forgot to snack during the morning, though I drank a lot of energy drink. Result? Good first 100m, uncomfortable next 90m, then WOW! Ever felt rooted to the spot? I was, and lost a certain silver medal as I ran out of energy instantly. After crossing the line in third, my whole body seemed to have pins and needles – even my teeth.
A cup of tea with eight sugars, and half a pack of jaffa cakes had me sorted in about 30 minutes, but I never want to experience what cyclists call “the bonk”, and the French “la fringale” like that again. What bad timing for a self-inflicted wound.
A few days later, I was back racing almost half a second faster than my Birmingham times, and the build up to the World Masters in Lahti continues. Tom July 2009 |
