Vets / Masters Events in 2020

Now is the time of year when you may be doing your winter training if not having a complete break from athletics.  Nevertheless we think it is useful to let you know the BMAF championshjps coming up in the next six months, so that you can have some goals around which you can structure your training.

STOPPRESS:  If you wish to enter the BMAF 10 mile championships, you should do so as soon as possible as general entries to the Lychett 10 are now closed, with a waiting list of 85, and thus our allocation will quickly go as well.

There are a lot of events in the 2020 BMAF calendar for all athletics disciplines but they are now all scheduled for track & field, road and cross-country. There are one or two premier events in each discipline, one which we hope you will do your utmost to attend, using the rest as part of your training/build up to those events. These premier events are shown in bold on the list given below.

I have not included the international and regional events but you can find them in the BMAF website fixtures page and on your area club pages.

One important change this year in the 5k, 10k, 10M and Half Marathon road championships is that we now allow open competitors to compete for medals but the open members have to pay a small supplement to enter each time which will indirectly help them appreciate the value in joining an area club. A second benefit of this change is that road running members will find it easier to assemble a team from their first claim club, because they won’t all have to join a BMAF area club. The road relays and the 1-mile championships were already open to all registered athletes.

There are now team awards at almost all of the BMAF road-running championships, including the 1-Mile for the first time.  Just three men or women belonging to the same club are needed to make up a team, which is self-selected on age-graded performance.  It works the same for the Half Marathon championships, whilst the team awards at the 5k, 10k and 10M  have the usual 10-year age bands.

Another change is that the Inter-Area cross country challenge is open to all BMAF area clubs, not just the English clubs, and it is combined this year with the national championships and thus you can compete for both individual medals and club team medals, provided you can make up a team of three from your first claim club, as well as the inter-area teams trophy and certificates for the winning team.

You may not however have any plans to compete over this period due to injury or other commitments.  If so,and you would like to stay in touch, then why not volunteer to help out as an official at some of these events. You can be given help to qualify as a technical official and we sorely need people to do this,whilst continuing to compete.  We even had to cancel one of the regional track & field championships this year because of lack of officials.

regards
Sam Amend

BMAF Communications Manager
Website: www,bmaf.org.uk