Lyla Belshaw, Colchester Harriers individually sponsored Nike athlete and reigning under 18 1,500m European Champion continues to make impressive strides in 2025. Although it was a slower build into her season – a pair of new trainers caused a low-grade shin splint issue in December last year (an injury which is notorious for requiring patience to shift!). Lyla’s coach, Dave Smith had to think on his feet and designed sessions on the anti-gravity treadmill which was very much venturing into the unknown and led to not really knowing what sort of shape Lyla would come back in. Initial time targets for the track in 2025 had to be reassessed – a challenging time for both coach and athlete!

Lyla eventually opened her track season on the 11^th of June and the concerns over Lyla’s fitness were immediately put to bed. The fruits of her meticulous build back were reaped when she ran a new 800m PB at the Watford Graded Open meeting with a time of 2:01.80, finishing fourth in a mixed race. Just to put this level of performance into context, the women’s senior qualifying time for the World Championships in Tokyo next year is 1:59.00. Clearly, no ‘rust busters’ are required for Lyla!

Her second race of the season and her first 1,500m was at the Loughborough BMC Grand Prix on the 24^th of June. A high-quality track meet, in which her third-place finish earned her a nice three hundred Euro cheque (and I am sure some petrol money for Mum, Tammy!). Her time of 4:13.84 was an encouraging first 1,500m of the season for Lyla, with it only being a second off her 2024 PB.

This race was closely followed by another BMC race, this time the 800m BMC Record Breaker in Bracknell, which is the distance she prefers over 1,500m as it a little ‘easier’, although she is probably a little stronger at the 1,500m. Lyla front ran this race and emerged the comfortable winner in another extremely fast time of 2:02.94. More excellent preparation for the upcoming British Championships was banked, despite a lack of competition and racing on a track in below average condition.

Lyla’s season was now really beginning to gather momentum, as the racing fitness and the hard training was shown in a real breakthrough race at the Watford BMC Grand Prix on 12^th July. These BMC races are so good, as they provide regular meetings with high quality competition and a chance to work on tactics, which Lyla did in some of these races last year. Lyla began the race with intent and tracked the pacer closely to finish third and take a whopping three seconds off her PB with a time of 4:09.13, breaking a long-standing 17-year BMC under-20 record! This puts her number six in the all-time under-twenty rankings and number two in the 2025 rankings behind Innes Fitzgerald’s mixed-race time from Exeter. What made the performance even more impressive is that she suffered cramps in both quads fifteen minutes before the start! With coach Dave Smith’s pre-race reassurance that it should loosen up in the race, Lyla remained composed and executed her plans despite this unwanted last-minute curveball. Lyla trusts Dave’s judgement implicitly and his development of Lyla slowly so she peaks at the right time plays a big part in this. His super-calm approach will have helped Lyla remain composed at this stressful time.

Just three days later, Lyla travelled to Luzern, Switzerland for the Spitzen Leichtathletik World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meet to run over 800m. This was a good step up for Lyla to experience racing in front of a decent sized crowd and everything a tour track and field meet entails. Over the past few months, Lyla has had sessions with Jen Savage, a British Athletics sports psychologist, who has helped with mental preparation for moments like this. The race line-up was a good one with the competitors having equally matched personal bests on paper (although, Alicia Schmidt comfortably had the most Instagram followers with a steady 5.6 million!). Lyla managed this big stage with maturity. The pacer went out hard and recorded a lightning-fast opening lap of 57.81! Lyla sensibly sat off the pace a little in fourth before kicking decisively with 150m to go to win by a good margin. The added bonus was a new women’s only race 800m PB of 2:02.01! However, Lyla is very much an athlete focused on medals in Championships and is not driven by times.

With some great racing and form in the bank, next up was the England Athletics Under-20 1,500m Champs on Friday 25^th July. This also acted as the qualifying event for the Under-20 European Championships in Finland. The selection criteria being only the first finisher guaranteed a spot on the plane, meaning there was no room for error. Lyla was the standout athlete in the field from a time point of view and by donning the green Colchester Harriers Soar ‘super vest’ in this one, surely, she could not be beaten? Tactically, Lyla got this spot on, taking the racing line behind the leader Eleanor Strevens, and as a gap opened up with 200m to go, she picked up the pace to pass Strevens and win the race comfortably in 4:18.19 and be crowned the England Athletics Under-20 Champion! Lyla was pleased with this performance, and it was a perfect example of how to navigate a qualifying race, without expending excess energy. All valuable experience for future Championship heats.

It was also fantastic to see Lizzie Wellsted race in the Under-20 5,000m Championships at this event and finishing third. As it stands, Lizzie is the reserve for this event at the under 20 Europeans and we keep our fingers crossed that she has a chance to race.

So, Lyla now prepares to represent Great Britain again in the 1,500m at the Under-20 European Athletics Championships in Tampere, Finland on the 7th to the 10th August. Lyla goes into this ranked number one in Europe over the 1,500m distance. Although at just 17 years of age, she is at the ‘bottom’ of the under-twenty age group and will be competing against older athletes. Everyone at Colchester Harriers Athletics Club is very excited and proud of Lyla and hopes she has a fantastic experience in Finland and races well!