Alex Hird Tag

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by Alex Hird Last Wednesday was the 6th and final NEGP fixture of the season at Monkton Stadium. Its been an incredibly popular series this year, with most events for each fixture selling out within an hour of entries opening. Despite this, I've managed to do all six. I was entered in the 800m for the final fixture. When the heats were announced 48 hours before, I was shocked, and a little bit worried, to find myself in the 'A race' with

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by Alex Hird On Wednesday I was back at Monkton Stadium for the penultimate NEGP fixture of the season. Only me there again, but this time I'd signed up to two events; 1500m and 400m. My 400m race was up first, I had a good draw in lane 3, and I had a good battle down the home straight to finish 2nd in a time of 55.20s, which was a PB by nearly 2 seconds. That doesn't sound like much, but it's

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by Simon Pickering This was my first time doing this course, and I’d been sold it as a “bloody quick course”. As soon as I saw the first half mile, I understood why. It turned out to be a good night for Crook, with many people getting 5k PB’s. I got there early as I went straight from work and was one of the first to register. Simple enough process. I soon started to get imposter syndrome seeing the height and the

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by Alex Hird Whilst the majority of our members were in Crook for the club 10K Championships, I headed for Middlesbrough to take part in the NYSD T&F League. This should've been the 4th NYSD fixture of the summer, but unfortunately the first three were cancelled for various reasons. Also, this fixture should've been held at out track at Shildon whilst we vacated to do the club 10K, but following feedback from officials and volunteers the decision was made to switch it

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by Alex Hird Wednesday evening was the 4th North East Grand Prix fixture of the season at Monkton Stadium. The NEGP has been incredibly popular this year, with events selling out within an hour of entries opening. Luckily, I managed to grab an 800m place. My goal for 800m is to go sub 2 minutes this year, but after 10 days of eating and drinking rubbish in Cornwall, I knew it wouldn't be tonight. I was in the B heat, which was super

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by Alex Hird Saturday saw the 2023 NEMAA Championships take place at Monkton Stadium, Jarrow. As always, this is a great chance to win medals on the track & field stage. I turned up mid-way through the competition, and immediately I was shocked at the lack of numbers around the place. Normal NEMAA meetings appear to be packed, this was far from that. Maybe a badly timed event with it being Father’s Day weekend? Or, as one of the organisers put it,

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by Alex Hird It was a cracking summers day on Wednesday, with temperatures in the mid 20’s. It was not however a great evening for athletics, as it was just too warm! Anyway, enough of me twisting, I’d entered two races for this fixture. First up was the mile. When I looked at the start list for this race, I was abit anxious as I had the slowest PB from all 16 runners, but I saw this as a chance to get

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by Alex Hird Wednesday evening saw the 2nd North East Grand Prix fixture of the season at a sunny Monkton Stadium. I was in the 800m, along with young Matty Richardson from the junior section who was making his competitive track and field debut. My heat came first, and I ran a season's best of 2:06.16 Still some work to do for me to get below 2 minutes. Matty lined up a few heats later, arriving right after his school cricket match. This was his

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by Geoff Hewitson Over 50 teams took part in this popular mixed team format relay on the site of the former Consett Steelworks. The course is a challenging loop of approximately 2.1 miles with the notorious hill coming near the end. Our Club has enjoyed a great deal of success in this event, having either won it or finished in the top 3 on several occasions. In 2022 we finished runners-up and were the overall winners the previous time it was

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by Alex Hird Over the weekend, the 2023 North East Counties Track & Field Championships were held at Middlesbrough Sports Village. The highlight of the weekend was having team GB athlete Richard Kilty (aka the Teesside Tornado) in attendance. He broke the North East 100m record on the Saturday, and returned on Sunday to take gold again in the 200m. I entered the 800m on the Sunday, and due to only 9 entering, I made the final automatically! It was an extremely strong field,