David Locker won a brilliant silver medal at the British Masters Championships at the English Institute of Sport, Sheffield, competing over 800m at the V45 category. Locker who is the current British Masters V45 Outdoor 800m Champion, went into the competition in good form with a 2:03 clocking already under his belt but a tight calf over the past 3 weeks had prevented him from from really pushing on.
Locker run midweek at the Lee Valley Middle distance open leading up to the championships to test his fitness and ran a very respectable 2:04.8 so had decided to compete at the championships. The decision paid off with a fine performance from Locker who took the race on with 400m to go to win a brilliant Silver medal, without the effects of the Lee Valley race 3 days earlier Locker may well of held onto the Gold, which was won by the pre-race favourite Paul Harmer who surged through in the last 30m to take the Gold in 2:06.99 just 0.1 sec in front of the tiring Locker (2:07.08).
Dave Locker with a brilliant Silver Medal at the British Masters Championships
Locker who is also the European indoor Silver medallist from 2022, will now head into the World Masters Championships in the superb Torun indoor stadium in Poland in 5 weeks time competing for Great Britain, with ambitions to make the final.
Also in Action at the British Indoor Championships was Emily Marmion-Williams competing in the Women’s 1500m. Williams had been in good form, breaking the 1997 Senior Women’s 1500m Club Record of 4:35.6 with her second indoor 1500m race with a 4:32.85 clocking, she also ran her quickest 800m in 4 years with 2:11.08 in Cardiff a few week earlier.
Competing against the best Senior Athletes in Britain was always going to be challenging, but Williams running in heat 1 put in a terrific performance to finish in 8th place with a 4 second improvement in her SB with 4:28.42 to finish in a highly respectable 12th out of 19 competitors. The race was the quickest of the heats and the pace from the start was keen with athletes hoping that the 3 fastest loser spots would be from the first heat and Williams stuck to the task well and will be pleased with her level of fitness heading out of the Winter period.
Emily Marmion-Williams with another new SW Club Record for 1500m (4:28.42)
Williams has also been selected for the BUCS indoor championships representing Birmingham University in a weeks’ time and she will compete over 800m with ambitions to make the final.
Also in action at the Lee Valley indoor meeting midweek were a number of the Harriers Middle Distance squad and there were some great performances with six of the squad setting new lifetime bests.
U13 Rafferty Davey ran a terrific race in the 800m pushing hard on the last lap to win his heat with a fine 3 second PB to clock 2:25.96 and move to UK 5th. Also in the 800m was U13 Tiggy Guthrie-Brown who sliced almost 2 seconds off her PB to record a season opening 2:31.07 and move to UK 9th, U15 George Sharp who improved by over 2 seconds to record a new PB of 2:15.59 (UK 31st), and U13 Clara Booth who sliced a huge 7 seconds off her PB with a fine run for 2:41.34 (UK 26th).
In the 1500m U17th Dylan Ransom sliced 5 seconds off his PB with 4:30.97 (UK 38th), while Evan Willis improved his PB by an astonishing 18 seconds with 4:37.76.
Most athletes will now look to get a few weeks of hard training in before the penultimate XC races (Inter-Counties & English Schools) in March.
Well done to everyone who ran.