And the award goes to...

What a great way to end the season!!

From Athletics

At no point was I expecting to receive anything at the St Mary's Richmond Athletic prize giving today as I only managed to grab 2nd spot (or 3rd depending on Neil Jennings' performance at the decathlon this weekend) on the club's overall men's top performance list (Just missing out to Paul Derrien and his string of wins in hammer and discus) plus I missed out on the highest scoring individual performance (Awarded to Mervyn Glover for his excellent 1.92m High Jump), and when my name was called out you can imagine the surprise..

The trophy was for "Most Improved Male Athlete 2008", as it is my first season at the club (and back at athletics after a long break). I also picked up a medal for being part of the team who became the "Rosenheim League Western Division Winners 2008".

It was also an honour to be a part of two other teams who did very well this year, firstly the Southern Men's League (Division 3S) who were undefeated and have now been promoted to Division 2, and secondly to the small 8-man team who triumphed at the Ealing Borough Trophies competition and won the Men's Faringdon Trophy against all odds (certainly one of the most memorable events I've had to date picking up 4 personal bests in what felt like an intense never-ending cold shower from beginning to end the way the rain came pouring down.)

That puts 2008 to rest and I've not managed to improve on any of my events since I last posted them up here, but here they are for the final time to round off the season and I've included markers for what I want to aim for during next season in brackets:

400m - 59.9s (56s)
High Jump - 1.80m (1.85m)
Long Jump - 6.18m (6.30m)
Triple Jump - 12.11m (12.20m)
Pole Vault - 3.00m (3.50m)
Shot Put - 9.01m (9.20m)
Hammer Throw - 17.94m (20.00m)
Javelin Throw - 49.70m, 163rd in the UK (50.00m)

Let the winter training begin....