Month: January 2012

John has been a Spartans groupie for 18 years and has spent many hours standing in the sun and rain marshalling and supporting his wife Beverley. After 35 years working mostly as a Community Psychiatric Nurse he took early retirement and now works part time at Heathcote School as a Mentor and Pastoral Assistant.

His interests are walking, cycling, bridge and always remembering to say “good run”. Being obsessed with ‘negative splits’ and ‘mile times’ he leaves to other as he is unable to run due to a long standing knee injury.

Simon has been a member of the Spartans for three years and has brought a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm to training and has over come his physical disabilities to compete in races, achieving great success on the track at National, Regional and County level.

In 2008 Simon reached the finals of the National Disabled Athletics Championships and won multiple Gold Medals at the Eastern Region Championships.

2009 was a fantastic year for Simon. At the start of the year Simon won the Paul Pearce Disability Award at the Comet Sports Award. Then during the year Simon also won 2 Silvers and a Bronze (200M, 4 x 100M, and 4 x 400M respectively) in the National Championships for Disabled Athletes and Gold, 2 Silvers and a Bronze (400M, 100M, Long Jump and 200M respectively) at the Eastern Region Disabled Athletics Championships. At County level Simon won Gold in the 100M at the Hertfordshire Disabled Track Championships.

Simon participates in a variety of club events, often bursting past other runners in the Club at the track training sessions. He has also offered his support in helping out with the Club Kit this year. Simon also enjoys working out in the gym at Marriotts.

Tessa joined the Spartans in 1994 after moving from Hampshire to Stevenage to be with her boyfriend (now husband) Dave. She belonged (and still does) to City of Portsmouth Athletic Club where she was Hampshire County champion for 800m for 4 years consecutively. Tessa wanted to carry on her running and having run 10K’s, 10 Miles and Half Marathons, completed marathons in November 1994, running the Stevenage Marathon, and then the London Marathon in 2000 when she was forty and had been in the sport for 26 years. She has been a regular County Medal winner in Hertfordshire and competes on both track and road.

Having loved the atmosphere at the Spartans, Tessa decided to become a coach in 2000 to help her fellow members. She introduced different types of training including track sessions and the odd track race including relays! She also encouraged members to have a go at doing more cross country races and got mens and ladies teams out in both the Southern Counties and National Cross Country championships for the first time. Tessa along with Katrina Doyle has started the Club’s first ‘Starter Group’ encouraging complete novices to have a go to walk/run on Monday nights. Tessa is also team manager for the women’s track and field team in the Eastern Veteran Athletic Club League in which the ladies won the final at Bedford.

Away from running, Tessa works for a firm who deal with the maintenance of the roads in Hertfordshire.
In her spare time Tessa likes to read and make various puddings.

Now in his 50’s Paul joined the Spartans in 1985 at 28 shortly after the club was formed following regular Sunday morning training runs that led up to the first Stevenage marathon in 1983.

Addicted to running as often as possible and the camaraderie of the club, Paul is a regular at most Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday training sessions.

A level 2 UKA qualified coach, Paul is also the Midweek League results secretary and club statistician for club championships and personal best records, as well as issuing monthly individual training plans for all 400+ members that he holds any data on which to base targets for.

Paul loves to race at all distances from 100 metres up to marathon and completed both his 1,000th race and 200th marathon in 2011.

A qualified accountant with BT, Paul is married with 3 teenage children and the youngest, Matthew, also trains and races with the club.

Outside of running Paul enjoys tackling tough logic problems, playing board games and the occasional game of duplicate bridge.

E-mail: press@fvspartans.org.uk

Jim Brown joined the Spartans shortly after moving to Stevenage from Scotland late in 1992.  He arrived with a pretty good record as a racing cyclist having achieved targets like “under the hour” for a 25 (miles), over 20 mph for a “twelve” (hours) and getting into the national rankings.  Gradually his number shifted from his backside to his chest for competitive sport but he is on the national council of the largest cyclists’ organisation in the country and still organises a number of successful cycling events including “Emitremmmus Desrever” which attracted 419 riders in October 2011.

Jim returned to the committee in 2009 but has been Spartan press officer for many years having first been elected to that post in 1996.  He was delighted to receive a special award at the Silver Jubilee Gala Ball.

Jim is a great believer in encouraging more people to get into active recreation — loads of health and social benefits — something Fairlands Valley Spartans have been doing really well.  His personal targets have been to try to achieve a 75% score in all eight club championship distances — particularly using the older, harder standards.  He’s come close a few times but lacks the oompf for the short stuff.

Recently he’s been advised to become a fun runner, we’ll see about that, but he reckons now is a good time to put a little bit more into the club which has given him so much pleasure and motivated him to attempt to get fit.

Jim qualified as an assistant coach in 2010, a Leader in Running Fitness (LiRF) in 2011 and is now a UKA Level 2a Endurance Official.

Email: secretary@fvspartans.org.uk

Steph spent so much time contemplating whether or not to join Spartans, that in January 2010 she was given her membership and a stripey vest by husband Steve.

Who knew then that within two years she would become Club Secretary in December 2011.

Since joining her running has improved in style and speed — still not fast, but noticeably faster!

Steph takes part in occasional races but is always determined to try her hardest and aim to better her times.

She has been a member of FVS Ladies team for Eastern Vets Athletics Club (EVAC) for the last two seasons.

She supplements her running training (normally Tuesday nights and Saturday track session) with personal training and gym sessions and occasional coaching from Stevenage and North Herts AC for pole vaulting and throwing skills (hammer and discus).

Steph is a radiographer working for University College London Hospitals which allows her to practice speed walking for EVAC and sprints along Euston Road, depending how late she is for the train!  She enjoys running because it enables her to get some fresh air, see daylight (a rarity in her job) and eat more!