PPAC-80 400m Urban Race

An action-packed morning as youth and senior athletes took on the 400m on a straight stretch of outdoor tarmac. Meyjou started the morning's session by leading a group warm up followed by a demonstration and practice session for the crouch start. Every athlete had the opportunity to try out the starting position under the guidance of the coach before the start of the race heats.

Athletes were split into five heats of four per heat, with two athletes running twice and an additional solo heat for the last athlete who was officiating the finish line during the main heats. With one heat starting every three and a half minutes most of the racing was completed within twenty minutes from the start.
There were some great efforts all round with tight finishes in heats 2 and 5 and, for all the PPAC 400m first timers, PBs to set benchmarks for their next attempts at the same distance.

In the overall results ranked by points there was a strong PB for Chanpiseth beating his previous best by nearly 150 points and point-scoring performances for four first timers. There was one sub-60s performance, one sub-70s and six sub-80s runs. All athletes finished the race in under two minutes. Athletes are also ranked by four different categories, with positions for F Youth, F Senior, M Youth and M Senior categories.

The race was followed by an extensive cool down routine with a range of static stretches for the whole group.

Thanks this week to session leader Meyjou, race officials Seavmey and Sivmuyleng, and Dickson, Jack and Sanket for video and photos.

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© PPAC 2021

PPAC-79 5km Road Race

This week we held our regular monthly 5K road race again and had a great turnout despite the public holiday. This was Phnom Penh Athletics Club's twentieth 5km road race and we welcomed three new athletes including the club's 300^th all time participant!

Conditions were dry but quite humid for the 11 athletes that toed the starting line and the race got underway just after 6 am.

Andarge and Neil led the race early, with a blistering pace around the park lap. The pace would prove unsustainable as both athletes settled into a more reasonable pace for the Sokha laps. The Men’s race was well contested in the middle pack with 3^rd through 6^th all finishing within one minute of each other and all under the 21-minute mark. Markus and Conrad battled out for 3^rd and 4^th which pushed Markus to set a new PB of 20:03. Matt and James also ran together the entire race, with Matt just holding out at the finish to beat James to the line by a few seconds.

In the women’s field, PPAC first-timer Elizabeth led from the buzzer and built a healthy lead that was never threatened. Irina ran with exceptional consistency and a negative split 2^nd > Sokha lap helped her set a new personal best in 36:42. In 3^rd place, first-timer Claire worked hard to finish and get the job done!

With the long-awaited return of Guillaume, we were happy to see some more French representation on the start line again in what was a particularly international race. Ten nations were represented in this week’s race which demonstrates the unique community of Phnom Penh Athletics Club.

Special thanks to this week's team of officials and helpers, club president Meyjou, with Seavmey, Seavleang and Kimkheang, and we sincerely thank athletes' generous contributions that help sustain and grow this athletics project. See you all soon at the next event!

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© PPAC 2021

PPAC-78 3km Road Race

Cool but quite humid conditions for our latest 3km Road Race, there were minor alterations to the course and some pavement hopping owing to standing water around the 500m mark after relentless rain over the preceding days. With eleven athletes at the start line, four were competing in a PPAC 3km race for the first time.

There was some great racing action out front with first timer Joseph pushing hard for the lead around half way but Andarge held on and eventually pulled away strongly with a 10:05 finish. There were personal bests for Sanket and Irina and in a youth category contested by four athletes Erika ran an excellent time of 14:59 in her first 3km race while setting a new best +200 points score.

Sanket leads the consistency rankings with a well measured run resulting in a new best Sokha lap time and a 3k PB by a significant margin of 1:57 (an 11% improvement). Erika also secured a best Sokha lap on her way to finishing first in the youth category.

A big winner in this week's fitness factor rankings was Joseph, way ahead of the rest of the field with one of the highest ratings recorded in a PPAC event so far. The fitness factor is a great way to judge where you are with your training - although natural talent is also an important element, it can give a quick indication of relative levels of training across the field.

Thanks to Meyjou for a great solo effort officiating this week's race. Keep running and see you all soon!

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© PPAC 2021

PPAC 2021 Autumn/Winter Event Schedule

Phnom Penh Athletics Club is pleased to present its 2021 Autumn/Winter schedule of events. Please keep the dates for your diaries and note some event locations are to be confirmed and the event schedule is subject to change.

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© PPAC 2021