ATHLETICS: Hastings girls on track
By Hugh Sullivan
It’s a breezy but blessedly dry Tuesday evening at the Ark Alexandra track, home of Hastings Athletics Club. The Junior Fundamentals, aged 11 and under, have been here with one or more coaches since 5.30pm, undertaking a mixed programme of athletic pursuits – running, jumping, throwing. At 6.30 older children, in a cohort styled the Junior Foundation Group aged between 12 and 16, roll up, still encouraged to try out a range of disciplines, but increasingly focussed on a narrower range of running distances or on specific field events.
The majority of both these groups are female. That’s maybe because boys have a wider range of sporting activities to choose from in Hastings, football in particular (despite the national promotional endeavours by the England Lionesses). But there’s also a factor of cohort attraction. In an era of small-sized nuclear families, a sports club may provide the close social ties of shared endeavours which children and teenagers thrive on. Where else in modern life can physically active girls find an approved outlet?
CREDIT: Dave Young
The atmosphere is chiefly, however, one of family togetherness. Parents are encouraged not just to ferry their offspring to the training sessions and/or to watch their sporting development from the sidelines. Where practicable, they’re encouraged to aid it by becoming group coaches themselves. While a number of the club’s senior coaches have had long experience of athletics training and competition, and boast advanced coaching qualifications, the club depends for its future on attracting more of the same.
Mother and daughter
Parents may also be drawn in to athletics performance and training themselves. That’s what’s has happened in the case of Chloe Le Fay, whose 15-year-old daughter Rae has been breaking junior club records as a middle distance runner. The family live in Etchingham, 16 miles away. Rae attends Heathfield Community College, and the nearest athletics track is actually Tonbridge. But Rae liked the smaller, more personal feel of Hastings, and appreciated the coaching which the club offers. She and Chloe drive down together on Tuesday and Thursday evenings so that Rae can join her Foundation cohort.
At the beginning Chloe stood on the terrace above the track as an observer drinking coffee and eating snacks. Then a Tuesday ‘beginners and improvers’ adult class was started, and she got the confidence to enter the group. She may not be able to beat her daughter, but she can join her.
Rae says she was keen on all sports at her primary school in Punnetts Town, but first realised that she had a talent for running when finishing second in a local Year 5 cross-country contest. Next year she won, and since then, running has been a major part of her existence.
At present she enjoys competing at 800 or 1500 metres. Despite being only 15 in an under-17 year group, her results this year have been outstanding – not only setting new junior club records at both these distances, but winning gold at the Sussex county championships in the 1500m and closing the season with another gold representing the county at the South of England Track and Field Championships in Oxford.
Next year she has the National Junior Championships in her sights. After that her longer term goal is to win a sports scholarship to a first-rate American college.
Father and daughter
Coach Peter Baker reckons she’s on course for that. His own daughter, Grace Baker, now aged 26 and a Great Britain international cross-country runner, trod the same career path a few years ago from first track outings at the Hastings club to an eventual scholarship at Oklahoma.
Peter has stayed as coach co-ordinator, marshalling a team of coaches to service both the junior groups and the ranks of senior athletes, which includes a number of nationally-ranked veterans, including sprinter Martin Reynolds and 400m runner Steve Baldock.
December is the close season for most local athletic competition, but the club sends out cross-country teams at both senior and junior levels in respective Saturday and Sunday county leagues through the winter.
Rae Le Fay at the Ark track
CREDIT: Dave Young
Rae’s weekly running schedule
Monday: 8 km run
Tuesday: coaching session at Ark athletics track including Fartlek interval running (sprints alternated with periods of jogging)
Wednesday: a session at the Go:ver gym in Heathfield including weight training
Thursday: a morning run before school, then another track session in the evening at Ark
Friday: rest day
Saturday: if no competition, a 5km park run or similar distance
Sunday: long run of 12-15 km
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