Local talented athlete performing well

CAMERON COVENEY - Wessex Wyvern Modern Pentathlon Club

The new year started well, with Cameron coming 3rd in the local GutBuster 10k and gaining consistent top 10 placings in Hampshire schools and club events, qualifying him to run for Hampshire at the inter county and national championship events in Loughborough and Liverpool. To his delight he was the first BMHAC runner back at the SEAA Cross Country Champs at Parliament Hill, coming in 24th out of over 200 runners.

Before the pools all closed, he swam in the Generation X time trials with Bluefins, getting PB times in all his races and putting him in a strong position for a summer of combined swimming and running competitions. However, as we all know, lockdown hit and so throughout the summer he was only able to compete in lockdown leagues and virtual time trials - the highlight of which was when he was 7th out of 600 men competing in the virtual 10km Asics event, and he also won an international virtual Triathlon with RunWithTheWorld, and featured in their e-magazine!

In the Autumn, things opened up (albeit briefly) and Cameron did a couple of real, live triathlons at Dorney Lake and in the New Forest (under strict CV19 controls with wave-starts, not mass starts!) coming 11th and 3rd respectively, in the Under 20 Males. His dedication to his run training over the summer paid off when, after his 17th birthday, he was invited to be part of an adult marathon relay team competing in the Clarendon Marathon from Salisbury to Winchester, which saw him win the fastest individual leg, setting a new course record, and be part of the winning team. In November, he competed in a trail 10Km race at Maple Durham and won that with a 7 minute lead time, and was also able to compete in a national level 5km PB event at Haywards Heath, where he came 2nd in his race of U20's men with a 1 minute, 9 seconds pb. Locally, he competed in an inter-club cross country around Old Basing Common, where he took 2nd place and he was part of the BMHAC Family Relay 2km virtual races, missing out on the individual winning time by 1 second!

In the New Year 2021, he was disappointed that the SEAA Cross Country Champs at Parliament Hill was cancelled as he had been hoping to go back and improve on his 24th placing from 2019 - but c'est la vie..... and in true Cameron-style he turned his attention to doing a charity endurance event - to run 4 miles, every 4 hours, for 48 hours - during the February half term. It was tough at times but he completed all 12 of the segments in fine form averaging 4mins 55 secs per km throughout and raised over £500 in the process.

Between lockdown 2 and 3, Cameron moved athletics coaching groups into an adult group but he has not had many opportunities to train with them yet, due to the lockdowns. However, his new coach has been keeping a close eye on his training regime and race planning for later this year. If guidelines allow, he has the London 10k at the end of May where he hopes to improve on his previous debutante time of 36:03; he is going to be part of the BMHAC South Downs Way relay team, and he plans to do his first trail half marathon at the Hampshire Hoppit in June.