Phnom Penh Athletics Club: January 2022

Monday 31 January 2022

PPAC-89 Youth Championship Round 1 - 800m & 100m

Welcome to Round 1 of the first Phnom Penh Athletics Club Youth Championship!

Youth athletes in U16 and U19 categories (aged 12-14 or 15-18) will race five events in three rounds over consecutive weeks. They will run 800m and 100m in the first round, followed by a road-style 3km race in week two and 200m and 400m in the third and final sprint round. Any athlete that wants to be crowned champion must participate in every event. Points are awarded to every athlete in each category by finishing order on a scale from 20 points down to 1 point (20, 17, 15, 13, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1). At the end of the competition the athletes with the highest points total from the five events will be declared the champions!

Round 1 - 800m
The competition began with one of the most notoriously challenging middle distance track events, the 800m. Athletes lined up on our 300m track for a group start, running an initial 200m section before completing two full laps to the finish.

The 800m is a fast race, however, consistent pacing from the start is vital. Those who judged the pace correctly from the beginning were generally rewarded with strong performances. Four heats were run - one for each category for girls and boys - and there were category wins for Sokung, Sreyleap, Soboros and Hector.

100m Sprint
After a brief rest, the shortest sprint distance of the championship took place across six heats, with a maximum of eight athletes running at the same time. Race officials ensured that all athletes followed the correct procedures before starting the second event of Round 1.

The girls U16 and U19 heats were closely run, with the U19 heat producing a photo finish as Charonay dipped across the line ahead of Sreyleap. In the boys competition the top three places in the U16 race were tightly fought and the U19 heat produced the five fastest times on the morning.

Youth Championship points table at the end of Round 1
All the results of the first round are grouped by category in the table below, and each category is ranked by total points scored in the two events. Winning performances for each category race are highlighted bold. Keep an eye on this table as it is updated every week to see what you need to do move up the rankings or maintain your position!
Athletes will move onto Round 2 in one week to race 3km which is the longest distance of the five events in this championship.

Full Race Results & Analysis
The following tables show the full results for each distance ordered by finishing time. There are columns showing average pace, PPAC points (which measure relative performance across male and female categories and different distances), as well as the consistency rating which shows how even the pacing is over the course of a race.

Special thanks to our volunteer officials, assistants and photographers on the morning, Lorinda, Matt, Andy and Mon Mey as well as all who supported the event by accompanying the athletes or helping in any other way.

Like and follow us on our FB page, join our Strava club and watch our athletics videos on YouTube. If you're interested in helping out please contact us through FB or at phnompenh.athletics@gmail.com, you can also support our work through donation with details available on our blog.

Monday 24 January 2022

PPAC-88 400m Race and Sprint Masterclass

Youth athletes were put through their paces with sprinting practice and drills this week before testing out newly learned skills in a 400m race held in five heats

The session started with a 10 minute jog followed by some ground contact exercises and strides. Athletes then practiced the crouch start for sprints before a final section working on full sprinting form.

Youth girls (plus one senior) went in the first two heats with Sokry and Sokung winning respectively. Sokung's 1:24 also scored her a big new points PB while Sreypov ran a point scoring performance for the first time.
In the third heat, Mon Mey scored a big points PB with his winning time of 1:13, scoring points for the first time and finishing three seconds ahead of Paul with the two youth athletes further back.

In the penultimate heat, four U12 boys raced the 400m for the first time with Mau the standout performer finishing well ahead of the others in 1:37.
Finally event organisers Meyjou and Jack ran head to head with Jack edging to the win in the day's best time of 1:10.39. However, Meyjou's 1:12.34 was the top overall performance scoring 527 points to Jack's respectable 340.

Special thanks this week to coach Meyjou, volunteers Paul and Jack and the others who supported this event by accompanying the athletes or helping in any other way. We hope the athletes enjoyed the session!

Thursday 20 January 2022

PPAC-87 3km Road Race

The club's first 3km road race of the year continued a great start to the 2022 calendar with youth runners outnumbering seniors and a total of 32 finishers.

We had three new youth athletes and thirteen taking part in their first 3km race with everyone finishing under 26 minutes. Well done to this week's first place female finishers Meyjou and Sreyleap in the senior and youth categories respectively, and Viro and Soboros in the equivalent male categories.

Main results below are ranked by PPAC points, which gives us a great idea of performance level across the male and female categories.
We had an amazing fourteen PBs for athletes with previously recorded 3km times, with new bests for eleven youth athletes including big improvements of more than 10% for Sreymien, Senglim, Soboros and Ma Mon. It's great to see so many youth athletes all making good progress.
There were eight points PBs, including first points scores for Senghong and Udom and improvements of 50+ points for six athletes.

There are four excellent sub-1.00 consistent performances this week with top-ranked Sreyleap running an extremely measured race on her way to an event and points PB. Mathieu and Adrien were both very consistent on their way to sub-12 minute performances in their first 3km race.

It's useful to compare pacing between the short first section (Park Lap, ~0.86 km) and the Sokha Lap and we can see that some athletes, with a higher consistency rating in double figures and a large difference in pace, started the race too fast and were unable to maintain enough speed for the rest of the race.

Special thanks to our volunteer officials and assistants and photographers on the morning, Haruka, Seavmey, Sivmuyleng and James as well as all who supported the event by helping out and via donations.

Join our Strava club here, like and follow us on our FB social media page here and watch more athletics videos here. If you're interested in helping out please contact us.

Wednesday 12 January 2022

PPAC-86 5km Road Race

The club's first event of the year was our regular four-weekly 5km race, held in great early January conditions and a super way to get the 2022 calendar up and running with a great turnout and mix of youth and senior athletes.

This year's 5km events will be part of a 2022 5km road race series where every finish gets a score and competition points are awarded based on finishing position. We will also be tracking a number of other statistics including races completed, PBs, best laps and consistency over the course of the year so make sure you join often and chart your progress with PPAC!

We had four first timers and nine athletes taking part in their first 5km race with everyone finishing within 45 minutes. Well done to this week's first place category finishers Andarge and Soboros in the senior and youth men's respectively, and Muyngim and Sreyleap in the equivalent female categories.

Results below are ranked by PPAC points, which gives us a better sense of performance level across the male and female categories. We had four PBs for athletes with previously recorded 5km times with new bests for three youth athletes including impressive improvements by respective margins of 3:28 and 1:57 for Sreypov and Sreyleap. Near the top of the table James recorded a 25 second improvement and five athletes recorded new points records with the biggest increase of 242.5 points for Soboros' excellent result in his first 5km race.

There are two very similarly consistent performances this week from James (2nd place finisher overall) and Mark, with six of the top seven consistent performers recording strong negative splits on the Sokha lap which is a great sign of faster times to come from all those athletes. James also secured a rare double best lap result underlining a significant jump in individual performance.
Less consistent races with strong negative splits, often caused by setting off too fast, suggest that with better pacing those athletes can also make big improvements in performance!

Special thanks to our volunteer officials and assistants Seavmey, Seavleang and race director Neil as well as all who supported the event by assisting and via donations.

Join our Strava club here, like and follow us on our FB social media page here and watch more athletics videos here.