National standards met in latest round of the ActiveGsy Track & Field Series
Action returned to Footes Lane in unseasonable conditions on Sunday. Afterwards we spoke to Chris Chalmers, who followed his sons into athletics when he was 55, about his motivation, training and just how it feels to stand on that start line.
When Kate Bain lined up for a solo 400m effort little about the conditions suggested it would be conducive to a fast run.
The track was still damp with the odd puddle stubbornly holding on from the downpour that came before the latest Guernsey Athletics’ ActiveGsy meet.
A strong wintery wind blew down the back straight for what was the last event on the track.
But going through the first 200m in around 28.5s belied all that and her reaction to stopping the clock in 58.17s showed exactly what it meant.
It was a time that moved her up to fifth on the all-time list and she has shaved nearly a second off her 400m best over the course of three runs in the ActiveGsy series this summer, each one comfortably inside the Island Games A-standard.
The run also qualified her for the National U20 championships.
She was not alone in clocking a national standard.
The 100m hurdles was the first event on the track and it was Rhiannon Dowinton who was showing some class.
She broke 15s for the first time with 14.72s, a mark that qualifies her for the National U23 championships.
Vicky Hancock was second with a new PB of 16.00s, adding an Island Games B standard to her triple jump A standard from May.
There was excitement too out in the field with the women’s javelin competition proving a tight affair.
Alexandra Higgins led throughout, with her best throw of 32.78m in the fourth round breaking the Island Games A-standard of 32m.
But Rebecca Le Tissier improved with every throw to keep the pressure up, hitting 31.36m in the sixth round to comfortably set a Games B-standard.
The action spanned the age groups, with U13s continuing to rack up points in different events as part of the Compete Against Yourself initiative.
At the other end of the spectrum, Chris Chalmers cemented his position as fourth ranked V60 nationally in the 300m hurdles with a season’s best 50.28s.
Both of Chris’ sons have made their mark on the international stage, Alastair in the 400m hurdles and Cameron in the 400m.
He followed them onto the track when he was 55 and felt like a fresh challenge having played tennis and squash.
‘I thought to myself, “what can I do?” So I set myself the challenge of trying to run a 400m in under 60 seconds. It was quite an eye opener to understand how it really feels to basically sprint flat out for a minute.’
Over the following few years he competed at the Scottish Championships – running in the same heat over 400m as Alastair one year and Cameron the next.
The sub-60 remained elusive, but he ran 60.81s in 2020, ranking him fourth in his age group in Britain at the time.
‘It really showed me what I can do and how, what I needed to do in order to train and run fast. It’s been a really good hobby.’
He tried all different kinds of training to find a formula that worked for him, including cross country, cycling and weights.
The covid pandemic meant he could not work and had to follow the two-hour exercise guidelines.
‘I was forced to spend the rest of the day indoors resting, so, in effect, I was training like my boys, like a professional athlete, for about six months,’ he said.
‘And that’s when I ran my fastest ever 300 hurdles, and my fastest ever 400 flat. So that’s a big lesson, that it’s really hard to run to your optimum if you’re in a full time job. You’re on your feet all day, you’re tired, it’s hard.’
His typical session will cover a total of 600m, basically flat out sprinting over short reps which he says keeps his body adapted.
‘All my muscles are used to being absolutely at maximum, and that works for me.’
Each season Chris sets himself some targets. Last year that was in javelin and discus.
This year he is trying to get to the point where he can do a 100m hurdles.
‘That’s proving a tough nut to crack,’ he said.
‘Because I’m not really quite fast enough to do a three stride pattern. I can do it comfortably with four strides. I’m quite a good hurdler, left and right, but to be a proper hurdler you have to do three strides with the same lead leg all the way down. So that’s my challenge. I don’t know if I’ll achieve it this season, I might have to keep practising and try and get it next. I think I’ve learnt patience.’
When he’s not competing, Chris often films Guernsey Athletics’ events and posts the coverage on his YouTube channel AthleticsGuernsey.
‘It started because I would always film the boys’ sessions and then we could really have a look at what we were doing, analysing ourselves. Then it quickly became clear that everyone loved seeing the races back,’ he said.
He would always have his camcorder with him as his sons competed around the globe, but said that luckily now they had achieved a standard where they were being covered professionally.
Chris still films their training when he is over to see them.
‘We’ll look back and we’ll analyse it. We use various apps to work out the splits, it’s always very useful.’
Having followed Cameron and Alastair down the athletics route, Chris has some understanding of what it takes to stand on the start line.
‘The feeling of the start and hearing “on your marks”, that’s something else,’ he said.
‘So for my boys to be able to do that in the biggest events and not just freeze or crumble, that’s something else. They have raced a lot so have adapted to it. But it’s quite a thing, the first time I did it I was terrified. I still get nervous, even now, even though it’s just me against my clock. You put your own pressures on yourself, you want to try and do your best.’
Alastair will be running in the British Championships this weekend.
His heat is at 4pm on Friday and the final at 3.15pm on Saturday.
Having already run a World Championship qualifying time, a first or second place finish will guarantee his selection.
All the action is on BBC iPlayer.
Full results from the ActiveGsy Track & Field meeting are available here.
