Arena Beacon 6k Monday 10th September

Monday saw the return of the annual Beacon 6k Arena club only race, a straight out and back run from the Beacon at Hove Lagoon to the Peace Statue. It all sounds pretty straight forward as it’s a nice flat run along the Prom, however, as per all the previous year’s, this race is well-known for always being windy and this year proved even more so than previous year’s.
There were four groups that set off at 4 minute intervals, the reason being that all athletes will get back to the finish line all within a few minutes of each other. There was a good field of 50 taking part this year as this is always a popular race for the club plus it’s also part of the Super Series challenge.
The winners would undoubtedly come from the last group for both the men and women. For the men we had last year’s winner Anthony Snelling in group 4 and there was no Caroline Hoyte this year to defend her title so there would be a new ladies winner this year.
I’m told that the wind on the return leg was horrendous and certainly played it’s part with the timings this year as they were a little down on last year’s times.
Our winners though did indeed come from the last group with Tara Shanahan triumphant for the women with a winning time of 22.41 and for the men, well it went to last year’s winner and the first man to retain the title Anthony Snelling in a time of 22.10.
Completing 2nd and 3rd places were for the women Dani Tarleton 24.12 and Rebecca Knights 24.38. For the men it was Aled Anderson 22.38 and Michael Barker 22.32.
Congratulations to both Tara and Anthony who make further in-roads to their Super Series results.