Trafford & Hoyte hit the 10,000m England champs

On a wet and cool night two of Arena women made it to the England UK Fast Friday 10,000m Open championships.in Walthamstow last week. The standard at this event was exceptionally high with some of the best in England attending and this was invitational only as a qualifying time was required in order to race. Indeed there were several GB athletes amongst the field as well as some familiar women’s names from Worthing, Haywards Heath and Phoenix. The two ladies representing Arena 80 ac came from Maisie Trafford and Caroline Hoyte and we couldn’t have asked for more from our Arena women. Such was the high standard of the race that the track record was smashed by over two minutes by Nicola Taylor (33.31) with the well-known name of Tracy Barlow coming in 2^nd place (34.15) who also beat the previous track record.
Maisie Trafford was at the head of a group of four women all vying for the 5^th spot  and Caroline was sitting on the heels of Megan Wilson from Highgate throughout the race. On the last lap, Maisie showed amazing strength and put in a very strong final lap to come home in 5^th place beating the 6th place by almost a minute. Caroline Hoyte had a really good old fashioned tussle with Megan Wilson in the final 200m but was just edged in to 7^th place. Maisie’s time of 35.22 has now been set as her PB time for this track event.
Maisie’s 10k road time PB is 35.21 set at the London Vitality 10k in May so she is in very fine shape.at present and just seems to be getting stronger as the year goes on. Now ranked 14th in England for the women’s 10000m track distance as well as ranking 9th in England for 10k in the U23 women’s category.
Caroline has only one other time for the 10,000m track event when she clocked 34.55 way back in 2008. Her time here was 36.21 and just goes to show she has lost none of her grit, determination and stubbornness to succeed. A superb race from Caroline and only 26s from her 2008 time is one hell of an achievement in itself. Caroline is now ranked 21st in England for 2019 in the track 10,000m as well as ranking 1st in England for the V45 in 3000m and 5000m and 2nd V45 over 10k for 2019. Such an inspiring athlete to so many in the club and huge congratulations to both of our women on such fine performances and for flying the blue vest of Arena 80 on the bigger stage.