Your Middlesex Athletics Champions

Fiona and Luke competed in the 2026 Middlesex Track and Field Championships. Representing the club and returning with Gold medals, they helped QPH secure 13th place (of 33), beating the likes of Belgrave and Ealing Eagles. Their achievement shows that sometimes all you need to do is be ‘in it to win it’.

Fiona English - SW 400m

“What is your usual distance?” The race official asks after pointing me to my starting line. 

“50 miles.” I answer. 

“Oh. Wow. Well, yes.”

The feeling of slight shock and fear is mutual I feel like telling him.

I’d signed up for the Middlesex County Championships the evening after London Marathon. What better way to get on top of the post-race-blues than signing up for another race. I accept it’s quite unusual to go from training for marathons to 400m track races but the lure of a County medal and slight absurdity of the challenge was too good to miss.

I’d spent a long time researching the field events that were taking place in the Middlesex County Championships because, while there were 50 entrants for the 100m, I’d discovered the slight loophole that certain events were wildly less popular. I’d narrowed my entry choices down to the pole vault (but thought I might die), the hurdles (unlike Luke, thought I might die), the 1,500m (too long, thought I might die) and the 400m (lower chance of death).

And so roughly 6 hours after finishing London Marathon, I signed up to hopefully not die by running one single lap of the Lee Valley Athletics Track. The deadline for applications came and went and I was the only entry for the 400m race meaning as long as I turned up, ran round, and didn’t get disqualified I would become the County Champion. 

Race Day arrived and so, having asked the official where to stand at the start, and lining up with two outrageously quick under 20s, we were

On Your Marks Get Set gunshot

off! It took me a second to communicate to my legs I needed them to start performing and then off I went for my one glorious lap of the track. I thought about all those evenings spent running track with the club, often chasing my athletics crush Sophie Barnard and QPH President and joker Gildas Braine and I quite literally grinned my bursting lungs and shocked muscles around the lap. 

The under 20s were past me by 50m (they’d both go on to beat me by over 20 seconds) but rather than let that bother me I just thought how inspiring that was and how pleased I was to be representing the club. 

I had no idea how fast I was running, I was too busy enjoying myself, but at about halfway I thought that 400m actually seemed like quite a long way. At the final bend I tried to remind my legs to keep moving and on the home straight I could hear my Mum and son cheering me on which just got me grinning all the more. 

I crossed the finish line in 81 seconds - an unexpected PB at the 400m and the newly achieved status of Champion of Middlesex (400m SW). 

One cheesy podium presentation later, a hug from Bill and a car ride home and I hung my gold medal up proudly next to my London marathon medal. 

Two PBs in two weeks? 

Only in one of the races I came 1068th and in one I came 1st.

Luke Kretschmer - SM 400mH

I hadn’t cleared a hurdle in 18 years, yet the opportunity of a Middlesex county medal, and the chance to bring a hurdling medal back to QPH was too silly of an opportunity to let pass by. After a day supporting the London Marathon I submitted my last minute entry to the 400m hurdles, having scouted the entry lists to ensure I would be almost guaranteed a medal. 

With Thames Valley Harriers training with us, an opportunity to have one practice session arose, and with the guidance of their hurdles coach Gary Telfer I at least knew what I was getting myself in for. Though this practice did nothing to improve my confidence, it did ground my fear in a pragmatic reality of the challenge. Thankfully my hour with Gary had at least given me a very simple strategy to manage the race:

Relax, drive for eight, stand tall, attack the hurdle, drive for eight…

As race day rolled around I was at Lee Valley early with the men's 400m hurdles the first race of the day. I had one competitor, David of Victoria Park Harriers, a few years my senior but he held a PB that I thought consigned me to second place. Having pratted around with some drills borrowed from my total of 1hr of training I nervously made my way to the start. Cross-country spikes swapped to a track legal length, numbers front and back, and starting blocks eschewed for a standing start (nothing new on race day after all (unless it’s the race itself)).

And with the starters marks, the shortest race of my adult life began. Hurdle one and two came fast but I had closed the distance to my rival before the exit of the first bend. Having clipped hurdle two, my steps were out of sync for three (I am not an ambidextrous hurdler), a little stutter step and I was back leading with my right for four. Gary had warned me that five, six and seven are where the race is won or lost, and I could still hear David chasing me down. With arms flailing like a lofty windmill and legs starting to burn I survived the final bend and could see the finish line. Three hurdles left, but with legs turning to jelly each seemed taller than the last. With a final leap and squeeze of everything left, the finish line finally arrived.

Stephen Allison - SM 800m

Unlike my illustrious club mates' adventures, mine was not to end in a medal, or even close to one. But I'm going to piggy back on their stories and hopefully catch some reflected glory....

This wasn’t supposed to happen.  When I started running it was all going to be about easy long runs in the countryside, I wasn’t the kind of person interested in going fast.  Yet, having signed up Marie for the U16 800m, and knowing I was going to be there anyway, I thought why not give it a shot?  And so a few clicks later I was signed up for the Middlesex Championships 800 metres.  The only track racing I’d done before were the QPH time trials during the Olympics (800m and 1500m) and a track mile, all of which had been hard. As the event approached I was pretty convinced I’d bitten off more than I could chew.  Snooping around the other runner’s PBs - all at least 20s faster than my 2:43 time trial - reinforced this. What was I doing?

I only entered 11 days before the event so didn’t get much time to prepare.  I went down to the track and tried some 400m laps (hard, aiming for 80 seconds), and I added in some 100m strides to the end of my easy runs, but that was about it.  I dug out my XC spikes (thankfully cleaned after the last race!) and screwed in some 6mm studs, it all felt very professional.  Maybe I could stitch two 80 second 400s together to get 2:40?  In any case, although I knew I’d be last, at least I could fly the flag for the over 50s!

Race day - Marie zoomed round her 800m faster than I could ever hope to do. The speed some of the junior runners can attain really is something, and they all look so fluid and smooth. It made me wish I’d taken running more seriously when I was a teenager (sorry dad, you were right).

The senior men’s 800m was the last event of the championships. I hoped this would mean that a lot of people had gone home, but that was not to be.  We were allocated our lanes, and without much ceremony off we went.  Someone who was probably about half my age flew past me on the inside almost immediately, but I settled in and it wasn’t feeling that bad.  Coming to the bell I saw on the trackside clock that I’d done the first lap in the low 70s, way quicker than I had imagined.  I just had to hold on.  The final back straight was the hardest, the legs burning and there still a way to go.  I was buoyed by the runner in front, since it seemed they were not that far in front, or at least not as far I had expected.  The last 200 were hard, I could feel myself slowing, but the end was in sight, a real mental boost!  At last the line came, and though I was in last position I could see that the clock hadn’t reached 2:40 yet.  There was a rather friendly exchange of compliments between all the finishers, and then I wandered over to the results desk where they were entering the times. “Which one were you?” I was asked, “The last one!”, “2:33.19”.  I was amazed.  Although objectively slow, it was so much better than I had thought I could do.  It’s alright this track stuff.  You should give it a go.