Page 45 - QARANC Vol 14 No 7 2013

Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM)
RCDM was fortunate enough to be able to put a small team forward for the AMS athletics this year, which was held at the athletics track in the beautiful grounds of the Royal Medical Academy Sandhurst (RMAS). The competition this year took place on Friday the 21st of June 2013, so the heats and finals were all on the same day. WO1 Keeping struggled for volunteers due to personnel on Operational tours and other working commitments on the wards and departments. Despite her best efforts to get at least one competitor in all events, male and female, the team consisted of only 4 males and 8 females. This meant that not all events were covered and there would be a lot of individuals competing in multiple events, which in turn would result in some aching, broken bodies once it was all over.
We set off from Birmingham in the very early hours of Friday morning in order to arrive at the Athletics track at RMA Sandhurst for the team Captains brief held at 08.00hrs, unfortunately due to heavy traffic we arrived a little late, but we soon got into the flow and team spirit of the event. Helped along by the lovely weather, fantastic atmosphere and support from other
units. The ice cream van and barbeque may have also boosted morale a little too.
RCDM started off well by Captain Abbott grabbing a gold medal in the men’s javelin and shot and Surgeon Commander Robin receiving similar honours in the female discuss. As the day continued the medals carried on coming resulting in RCDM women’s team taking 6th place and the males
taking 9th place. It was a fairly good result considering we had such limited personnel taking part. We came back to the unit with a couple of shiny trophies so the Commanding Officer was very happy. WO1 Keeping has now hung up her athletics shoes realising that this is a young persons game, but wishes RCDM all the best for future events. WO1 J Keeping, RCDM
THE GAZETTE QARANC 43
Royal Centre for Defence Medicine US Marine Marathon team
On Sunday 27 October 2013, 8 DMS personnel and 2 Infanteer’s are running the, US Marine Corps Marathon for the Allied Forces Foundation and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Charity raising money for the UK Military Patient’s Fund and Fisher House.
The team is made up of injured and non injured serving and veterans with Cpl Mark Tonner 1 MERCIAN and Rifleman Paul Jacobs GM 2 joining us in the 26.2 mile run in Washington DC. Over the week in America in between training, we will be meeting many of our old patients from the HERRICK campaign and have the honour to run alongside them in this event. We are attracting a huge amount of attention in America as the US Marine Corps Marathon has never had a UK Military medical team enter before and already have named us the “Flying Nightingales”!
Lt Sarah Williamson-Green, 2Lt Jane Keenan, Cpl Stephanie Reed and I would all like to thank the QARANC Association for their kind support and generous donation that has enabled us to join this annual event and look forward to writing about it on our return.
We are now starting in earnest both the training and fund raising for these brilliant charities in order to ensure our injured Service Personnel and their families are excellently cared for and ask that anyone wanting to support us, track our progress and make donations please follow the hyperlink below.
www.justgiving/usmarinemarathon.com
All donations are greatly received. Major Liz Hughes
Army Medical Services (AMS) Annual Athletics Competition 2013