The Mark Ellis Blog

With lockdown leaving many training facilities unavailable, 2020 was an incredibly tough year for Philippa. It was clear that the chances of combined events were going to be very slim due to restrictions on high jump beds & long jump pits, plus access to hurdles was also very tricky. Between her & Geoff, the decision was made early in lockdown to make 2020 a Summer of working on speed. Training was tricky in lockdown with most tracks closed but Philippa joined the throng at Silksworth or trained in our street or in the back garden - skipping has been the new phenomenon and the back garden has an ideal skipping square. We're also blessed with plenty of hills,  so hill training is nice and easy in Lumley.  So, onto the performances. Competition options were very slim in 2020 and Philippa only competed at Darlington and Morpeth - two tracks that aren't ideal as Darlington is falling apart and both can be a bit windy. Philippa hadn't competed at Morpeth since she was a ...

After a great winter of training with the Hammer, unfortunately lockdown put pay to any early season competition - the plan was to open her season at the Spenborough Open Meeting, but the plans disappeared.  The training & hard work continued though when training could resume & Lexie continued to work hard with Nick to improve her technique & power with her throws. She even featured in a couple of EA Webinars on how her technique had changed and improved.  So, we did eventually get to some competition & Lexie started her season with a guest place at Morpeth's Inter Club match on the 8th August. It was a fantastic performance with a great series of throws & she was sitting at just over 39m when there was a financial reward offered if she could hit 40m - it was close, with her final throw being 39.84m. A huge improvement on her previous job of 23.40m - she was delighted. But this is Lexie and she always wants to improve.  Her next Hammer outing was at th...