FRA U20s Championships

We are launching a new FRA U20 Championships series, aimed at athletes progressing from juniors to adults level. The series includes races from both the U18 and the Senior Championships, and carefully selected other(s).

Agegroup is U20 on 1st January.

The races are in three categories:
Short races from English U18 Championships

Rivington Sat 30 March
Hawkswick Sun 30 June

Short races from English Senior Championships:

Buckden Pike Sat 15 June
Blisco Dash Sat 27 July

Harder races

Fairfield Sat 11 May (AM) min. age 18 on day
Pen-y-ghent Sat 1 June (AS)

Best 4 results to count (including one from each category)

There will also be a group recce of Fairfield on Sat 20th April, from Rydal Hall.

A team prize will be awarded, clubs need to bring 2 or more runners (3 will gain more points), and this can be any combination of men and women.

Full details can be found in this document Attachment 6711
And on the series website
There is also a Facebook page, where Lauren and Duncan will be happy to keep in touch, and answer questions about the series, fellrunning, and running in general.

I am series coordinator (for the last few years I have been primarily responsible for selecting Junior Championships races), with support from Duncan Richards (the Juniors Coordinator).

If you think we have overlooked any small details that can be improved, or need to be mentioned, then feedback would of course be welcomed. Any larger changes to the series will be considered next year.

I know a few people are already excited by this, and I look forward to meeting many of you at the races,
Lauren Jeska

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Originally Posted by LissaJous

We are launching a new FRA U20 Championships series, aimed at athletes progressing from juniors to adults level. The series includes races from both the U18 and the Senior Championships, and carefully selected other(s).

Agegroup is U20 on 1st January.

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This sounds an excellent idea, Lauren, we lose a lot of kids at this age because the U23 is too competitive and the change from U18 coincides with them going off to uni and finding other things to do :-(

I'll publicise in our club Newsletter.

We need to have a catch up re: the Stretton junior champs race too - could you PM me your phone number and I'll give you a ring.

Cheers
Jim

Sounds great, we'll get our younger runners to have a go and be along to Fairfield reccie. Richard Stott, Rossendale Harriers.

Great idea folks - just need some juniors who qualify - more recruitment required!

Think this is a great idea, it gives runners the chance to adapt from the Junior Champs to the Senior Champs as there is a massive jump.

I never did a huge around of the junior races but in my first year of doing the champs, when I was 19, the first race was Long Mynd, which was a world away from 30-40min races to then running for 1:30hr plus!

Does this now give the chance for the English MU23 Champ to be brought in line with the British MU23 & seniors with Long races counting?

As at the moment with it being the best 3 counts from 4 it only gives one slip up then your in trouble but if it was 4 from 6 then it was give the chance of holidays / injuries / bad runs etc not to have so much of an affect. Also 21-22 year olds can cope with the longer distances, the likes of Robbie Simpson, Holly Page and Tom Adidson running extremely well over the 'longs'.

Hopefully this will lead to more younger runners doing the champs!

William Neill
Mercia Fell Runners

I just think it could have done with another longer race to pair with Fairfield such as Anni Waltz or Stan Bradshaw. All bar Fairfield are open to U18s. But it's a good initiative and hope it goes down well with the athletes.

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Originally Posted by Witton Park

I just think it could have done with another longer race to pair with Fairfield such as Anni Waltz or Stan Bradshaw. All bar Fairfield are open to U18s. But it's a good initiative and hope it goes down well with the athletes.

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Because as the attached document states, the championship is open to U18 as well. Therefore another race over 10Km would exclude them from qualifying for the championship.

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Originally Posted by FellJunior

Because as the attached document states, the championship is open to U18 as well. Therefore another race over 10Km would exclude them from qualifying for the championship.

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The point is, don't the U18s have their own Champs Jim? It's called the FRA U18 Champs!!

I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying that the idea is to bridge the gap. Well the bridge is the Fairfield Horseshoe. One race.

The main question in my mind is will post #7 disappear mysteriously in the fullness of time like some posts elsewhere.

Oooh, Ouch!

WP: As the races are already chosen for this year, I felt your post 6 was beyond 'minor details' and would better have been made towards the end of the year, when we review how it went, and most importantly what the athletes made of it. Obviously just a case of a small misunderstanding.

As I thought was clear in last year's discussion, if I'm in charge I will not put pressure on 18 and 19 year old athletes to run competitively in a hard AM race, and very much think that in terms of performance development, a race like Pen-y-ghent, which (although an AS) is tougher than anything these athletes have run in the U18s Championships, is extremely important.

We also wanted to maximise participation in the new championships, taking into consideration that quite a few clubs do encourage their U18s to run in the short senior championships races when this is permitted. It seems a little mean to exclude these runners from the U20s Championships, when they may have run 4 out of the 6 races. As with seniors/vets categories, people can qualify in more than one age-group.

The setup could indeed be slightly different, but for this year it has been decided, and if you want to resurrect last year's discussion, I would ask that you do it in a different thread.

Regards,
Lauren

Update after first race at Rivington today
provisional results

What a fantastic event, with the Seniors just taking the day in both men and women ~ Katie Walshaw (20:24) fending off Anabel Mason (U18!) (20:52), and Tom Cornthwaite / Gary Priestley (18:04/18:07) a little way ahead of 5th-place overall Alastair Weymouth (U20) (18:45).

Tables will be published within a day or two.
All U18 and U20 entries will qualify towards the series, and runners are able to compete in both championships if they wish to do so.

Important notices:
Fairfield has reached its entry limit ~ so normal entries are closed. But U20s can still enter (please circle U23 on the form and also write U20 to the side).

Information about the recce will be published online very soon.

Provisional tables are now on the Facebook site.