The short and the long of it
The short and the long of it
Please see this week’s update for Kent AC members – 12/04/26–
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KENT AC NEWS BULLETIN
12 APRIL 2026
Part of the women’s team, from left to right we have Jemima D’Arcy, Aisling Herne, Molly O’Connor and Caoimhe Nic Fhogartaigh. Thanks to Coach Pete for the picture.
Full reports from the women’s and men’s teams on the best set of National 12 Stage Road Relay
results in many a long year is in the Results section, below.
We’ve also charged into marathon season all guns blazing this week. Brighton, as usual, steals a march on other big-ticket Spring marathons, but Hannover and Rotterdam get a look-in, too. Then there are little forays to Lincoln and central London for that Landmarks special, and a solid local win for our Amy Clements at Dulwich Park.
A full Juniors report all about the Kent Youth Athletics League (KYAL) comes courtesy of Coach Steve Jones.
We’re now just a few weeks away from the first open meet of the year, so don’t miss the chance to sign up. Details of this, and the New Southern Athletics League (SAL) season, below.
All this talk of racing and inspirational results may have prompted a new spring resolution to get down to some serious training and explorations in efficient running form. If that’s you, sign up for a special Thursday workshop series (see On Form, below)
If you’d like to volunteer for the club while sitting down and letting the legs recover, please join our newsletter team. It would be fun to have some new voices in the comms department, and it’s a satisfying way of seeing all the news from across the club and celebrating everyone. Get in touch if you could help out once every 5 weeks or so.
As we head into some busy weeks of racing and big events, please share your stories, pics and thoughts with us so we can share with the club.
First up, the Stage 12 Relays, and the women’s performance:
‘Competing in a field of 50 of the top clubs in the country, the Kent AC ladies squad delivered an excellent performance at the Spring National Road Relays, climbing steadily through the field to secure a 16th-place finish – one of our best results at the spring nationals ever. The legendary Clare Elms took the high-pressure opening leg. In a typically dense and fast start, Clare clocked a swift 20:16 to hand over in 24th place, perfectly positioning the team for a charge. Aisling took over for the second leg and kept the team in contention while the field was still tightly packed, finishing her leg in 25th place and ensuring the gap to the top 20 remained manageable. Alexa put in a strong performance given her recent return from injury, and she began picking off runners, gaining 3 places to bring the team up to 22nd. Jemima, in her nationals debut for Kent C then gained another spot with a very controlled leg, moving the team into 21st. The biggest move of the day came on the penultimate leg with Caoimhe producing a standout run, slicing through the field to overtake five teams and move into the top 20, handing over in 16th place. Molly was then tasked with defending that hard-earned position on the anchor leg which she did with no problem, crossing the line to secure 16th place, almost two minutes ahead of 17th. Thanks to all the ladies who competed in both the Southerns and the Nationals this spring and who came to support (most notably our fabulous coach Pete!). We’re already looking forward to the next turn around Sutton Park in October.’
Over to the blokes:
Bags, gentlemen, please
Rob 1: Elphick
Rob 2: Sesemann
Report from the men’s team
‘Kent AC came a fantastic fourth in the country at the annual 12 stage relays yesterday. Although we have come third before, that team included two Olympians. So yesterday – with a team of Kent AC bread-and-butter runners who turn up at 7am to Dulwich Park and 7pm at Ladywell, or nail fartlek sessions with a laptop in the rucksack on the way to office, was arguably the better result.
Punchy
Man of the match performance to Owen Hind who ran the 11th leg completely isolated, setting off 90 seconds behind a bunched 6th, 5th and 4th place. Closing the gap by 40 seconds setting up young gun Joe English to chase them down. Joe then subsequently ran the quickest leg for Kent of the day, overtaking all three to haul us into fourth. While this 1-2 finishing sucker punch takes the newsletter’s sub headlines, all 24 runners of the two travelling teams ran superbly.
No-beer Street
The B team came 25th on the day, and were 2nd B team: 25th in the country, as a B team. Think about that for a moment – by definition, missing the club’s 12 best runners. In recent years the slow train home from Litchfield Trent Valley has been akin to a party bus, but not a beer was consumed yesterday such was the effort put into each runners’ performance. Gregg’s steak bakes and recovery carbs were the order of the day. Shout out to Rob Elphick for running quickly enough in the B team to justify an A team selection another year. To Jonathan Collier for the biggest number of places gained (13) of the two teams and Ben Clarke for racing despite working triple back to back shifts keeping our night time economy functioning. And of course to team captain and organiser Chris Busaileh.
Sunday Running
Now to those marathons. We had a large Kent AC presence in Brighton, which, as well as hosting the beloved Road marathon, also found space for the Maverick Trail Marathon. In fact the two came together for the last 5km, which must’ve been hard work for those in their trail shoes, such as Laura McCrave, who ran 4:44:37 to be tenth woman and Ash Green, who ran 4:25:30.
The road runners were plentiful and impressive, led in by Barnaby Day in 2:39:29
Harry Massingham 2:49:00 PB
Henry Court 2:59:14
Marcus Grima 3:07:25
Rupert Bedford 3:07:16 PB
Chris Hardy 3:11:16 PB
Abdullah Kizito 3:22:27
James Hilton 3:27:10
Lee Buchanan 3:44:41
Jaqueline Phillips Owen 4:27:35 (PB-first marathon)
Sharon Stanley 4:27:35
In Germany, Karina Box took on the Hannover Marathon and PBed in 3:36:13, and Ben Race went to Rotterdam to run the 26.2 in 2:42.
Well done the marathoners!
In other distances, Patrick Nation ran the London Landmarks Half Marathon in 78:30 and Sean Fitzpatrick ran the Lincoln 10K in 34:16.
Amy Clements, meanwhile, popped over to Dulwich Park for her Sunday run before taking on London Marathon again in a fortnight, and just happened to be first woman in the Run Through 10K:
Would that be lower fives all round? The youngsters excelled themselves this weekend over at Dartford Central Park Arena in the Kent Youth Athletics League leg 1 on Sat 11 April.
Saturday saw the first ever KYAL event for U12s following the reclassification of junior age groups this year, and Kent AC’s newly formed U12 team made a fearless debut. With a number of athletes competing just a fortnight after trialling for the club and trying events for the first time on the day, they all did the club proud competing across a range of events with spirit and commitment in chilly conditions. Most importantly, they gained experience of competition and came home with some times they can use to measure their own development in the coming weeks and months. Thanks to all the athletes to competed, and parents who came to show support. For the girls, Lily was a one-woman dynamo in a bobble hat – representing the Kent AC girls and racking up an impressive 13 points alone. She displayed great technique to achieve 4.29m in shot put, then ran 2.28.9 in a draining 600m. Soon after she bounced back to run 26.7 seconds in 150m. For the boys, Ollie had an outstanding day, coming first in both his races – 150m (22.3 seconds) and 600m (1:49.3 seconds) and third in long jump, recording a distance of 3.64m. Adam showed great commitment and energy, creating some valuable times which we will no doubt see broken in the coming weeks and months, of 31.3 in 150m. 15 seconds for 75m, and throwing 4.22m in the shot put. Dylan ran an exciting 600m race, pacing sensibly to steal some positions in the final straight and achieve third position with a time of 2:05.5. He also achieved 2.97m in long jump and 3.59m in shot put. Josiah recovered from the cold conditions, gaining experience of throwing discus to run a speedy 75m hurdles – with practice on jumping technique and maintaining speed to the finishing line, his 19.3 will be smashed very quickly. He returned later to show us how it’s done with a 12.6 second time for the 75m sprint. Isaac also cleared the hurdles comfortably in 18.4 seconds, gained his first experience of high jump and threw 5.06 metres in javelin. The boys – Josiah, Adam, Dylan and Ollie – also competed in the 4 x 100m relay, coming 6th overall with a time of 66 seconds – smooth handovers all the way around, what wasn’t bad considering they were coached in how to do it just 30 minutes before the race itself. Overall, our position of 8th reflects the comparatively small squad we fielded on the day, but puts us in a great position to build on for subsequent legs across the U12, U14 and U16 categories in the coming months.
We can announce that the first Kent AC open meet of the year will be on Thursday 30th April, and will involve two track events and two field events. The schedule will be as follows:
1845 Women’s 200m (U10+)
1905 Men’s 200m (U10+)
1930 Women’s 1500m (U12+)
2000 Men’s 1500m (U12+)
1800 Shot Put (U10+)
1920 Triple Jump (U16+)
Exact timings of field events will be dependent upon the number of entrants and age categories required.
All events will be club championships.
If you would like to enter these events please click through here. Registration is now open.
Please also note that we will need several volunteers to help from 5pm. These will be officials to help with the field events – qualifications and experience not required, as long as you can wield a rake or carry a shot – and with setting up, registration and marshalling the track. If you are available and willing to help on the night, please contact Phil Marsden, Dan Ansell or Richard Giles or sign up here.
Narciso from C Group has proposed a series of form/technique training workshops during June and July. What is being proposed is a training block of sessions to be held on Thursday evenings (same time as usual) focusing on form and technique as a summer camp, for middle distance/endurance runners. If there is sufficient interest – 10-15 people committing to attend regularly – (in order to gain meaningful benefits), coach Ted has kindly agreed to design and run these sessions. There is also an option of running it on Sunday mornings but this can be finalised once we have an indication of interest. People can indicate interest by sending a WhatsApp to Narciso 07476721272.
April
25 – KYAL – U14/U16 – Medway
26 – London Marathon
30 – Open Meet – Alex Yee Arena
May
7 – Assembly League – Victoria Park
16 – SAL – Eltham
20 – Beckenham Relays
23 – KYAL – U14/16 – Dartford
June
4 – Assembly League – Crystal Palace
21 – SAL – Watford
24 – Dulwich Relays
27 – KYAL – U14/U16 – Dartford
July
2 – Assembly League – Sutcliffe Park
5 – ROn Hale Open – Alex Yee Arena
19 – SAL – Cambridge
August
6 – Assembly League – Victoria Park
8 – SAL – Dartford
23 – KYAL – U12 – Tonbridge
September
3 – Assembly League – Beckenham Place Park
10 – Late Summer Meet – Alex Yee Arena
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Buy your track pass here.
The usual track times are:
Tuesday 17:00 – 20:45
Thursday 17:00 – 20:30
Sunday 09:00 – 11:30
Please note that individuals are permitted to do their own sessions during club opening times, but coached group sessions continue to take priority.
Track Pass – Juniors
Please purchase your £6.50 junior monthly track pass in advance here. When purchasing the track pass can parents/guardians please enter the athlete’s name when completing the transaction.
The Alex Yee Arena has opening hours dedicated to the public. While during these times the Kent AC track pass is not valid, members can pay for an individual session.
Session times are:
Monday: 07:00 -15:00
Tuesday – Thursday: 1300 -1700
Friday: 07:00 – 15:00
Saturday – Sunday: 09:00-15:00
Price:
Adult resident: £2.70
Adult non resident: £3.00
Junior (U16): £1.30
The Kent AC track pass continues to be required for training on Tues/Thurs evenings and Sunday mornings.
Track staff have encouraged people to double check the opening hours before their training session, as they may occasionally be closed for school sport days and football friendlies. Hours can be checked here. This will likely suit members who can’t make training sessions but would like to train in the morning/lunchtime/evening.
Pay as you go fees can either be paid via cash to the desk or using the Better app (note: staff are working to add the sessions to the app).
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