Seventeen senior men tackled the Trent Park mud in the final met league fixture of the season with welcome support from Jim Cooper, Declan Trainer and Tony Bush. We transitioned across the road twice from thick mud to thinner mud and it’s fair to say some love it and some really don’t!
Daniel Titcomb had another great race coming in in 21st place and it was great to have Chris Hudson travelling to run in 35th place. Jack Whitebury and Joseph Tarling also had speedy runs with 66th and 70th, Joseph coming an excellent 2nd in U20.
Hero of the day Tejas Hirani came 122nd after his shoe sucked of and he carried it for 2.5km – amazing! Joshua Pancia was next in 178th followed by a stunning mud loving run from Chris Finill with his run of the season in 212th and 1st in his age of course. Coming in a bunch with solid runs were Marcus Brown, Simon Sly and Henry Jakszta in 225, 226 and 228th. Simon has been one of our ever presents this year – well done. John Corcoran in 257 and Nick Andrews in 296 completed the A team.
Close behind Nick was Graham Barlow in 301 followed by Richard Tarling in 323. Ever present Rob Hawkes ran through a cold to come 340th – a real trooper, with Stephen Warburton next in 347 and finally it was good to have Martin Aslan for his first run coming in in 365th. In the fixture we came 11th of 15 teams and for the vets 12th of 15.
With all the results in we have ended up 9th in division 1 of 15 teams and 5th in the vets league of 15. The league was won by Highgate followed by Victoria Park then Heathside. Individually you had to do 4 races for a ranking and we had one champion! Chris Finill was first in V65 – superb, also one silver medallist in Jim Cooper (V50) and two more top 10s in the V50 with Nick Andrews 8th and Richard Tarling 9th. Our best senior was Jack Whitebury in 26th. Well done all. Below is a comparison of this season to the previous 3.
I think a fair analysis of the met league season is that it wasn’t as good as we hoped. We had the usual number competing at least once, but fewer total runs than last year by 14 which all adds up to fewer points. Note that 4230 is not as good as last year’s 4205 and well behind 2022 because the league increased from 12 to 15 teams. The vets team has maintained top 5 but really we need more support from the youngsters! Nevertheless, we will be back next season in division 1 and lets all aim to get back to the top 5.
Thanks to all for you great efforts in the Met league, and good luck to those doing the nationals in two weeks. There is also the 12 stage relay to come before the end of season so lets get a really good team for that.
Senior Women: The Harrow AC women’s senior team delivered a solid performance in their latest Metropolitan League race. Leading the team was Emily Antcliffe (FV40), finishing 17th in 33:47. Federica De Caria followed in 39th place with a time of 35:14, while Jo Finill secured 52nd in 36:04. Other strong contributions came from Jennifer Keal (83rd, 38:51), Katie Kelly-Watkins (86th, 39:09), and Sarah Saunders (FV45, 119th, 42:50). Additional finishers included Renata Olas (FV50, 130th, 43:39), Charlotte Mackey (138th, 44:27), Jo Fleet (FV55, 152nd, 47:28), Katia Andrews (FV50, 161st, 50:44), and Claire Rosser (FV40, 162nd, 52:46). Their collective efforts continue to strengthen the team’s presence in the league standings.
The U15 girls’ team put in a strong performance, securing 6th place overall with 109 points. Leading the squad was Katie Dalton, finishing 22nd in 20:22, closely followed by Grace Crisp in 24th place with a time of 20:24. Beth Dalton claimed 33rd in 21:12, while Ellen Antcliffe (47th, 23:30) and Gracie Lewis (49th, 24:29) completed the team’s scoring. Their combined efforts contributed to a solid team result in the competition.
On Sunday Harrow athletes were in action at the Watford Half Marathon and no doubt enjoying the cool conditions and a very hilly course that snaked around the back lanes from Cassiobury Park. There was a superb win for Harrow newcomer Chris Davies as he took the chequered flag in a swift 70:10!
There was good support from Harrow as many of the Tuesday night runners were out in force including –
Rob Hawkes 1:28:29
Ed O’Connor 1:31:32
Henry Jackszta 1:32:03
Issy Jones 1:36:12
Jo Gammell 1:38:20
John Hinchin 1:38:26
Tim Allman 1:44:19
Nicky Smith 1:44:11
Tom Hanbury 1:47:08
Geetu Mirpuri 1:48:12
Damian Wright 1:48:33
Also running a half marathon, but this time over at Victoria Park in North London, was another Harrow new boy in Zev Grunwald who placed 15th in a personal best 79:40. Zev will be running the Seville marathon in a few weeks time – good luck!
Tuesday and it was the turn of the clubs young athletes who were contesting the Middlesex Schools cross country championships and vying for English Schools selection! Some great performances saw 4 athletes qualify and a couple will be biting their nails to see if they get a late call up – well done all and in particular Michael Cattini (4th), Luca Russo (3rd), Amae Van Zyl (4th) and Katie Dalton (8th).
In his first Met League appearance for the Club, steeplechase specialist, Thomas Dugre ran brilliantly and came home in a really impressive 4th place. OCR specialist, Dan Titcomb put in a predictably decent performance in 51st and this augers well for his OCR Championship aspirations later in the year.
Next home, was Dave Branfoot, returning from a posting in Cyprus and competing for the first time in several years. An extremely welcome addition to strengthen the squad, he came home comfortably within the first 100 and was well supported by Club Captain, Jim Cooper.
Rhys Rowland has also just joined the squad running well for 140th just pipping Adam Towle, a second behind. Mark Cursons, fresh from his Home International Team gold medal for England in the UK Masters Championships, came 159th thus continuing his run of good form
Bouncing back well from injury Declan Traynor was also welcomed back slightly ahead of Fergal Keaney who finished 194th. Simon Sly returned well from Christmas illness for 204th and Henry Jakszta continues to improve as the season marches on.
A cluster of close finishes followed with Daniel Draper, Daniel Clark and Rob Hawkes all finishing within 8 seconds of one another, Chris Finill finished 272nd Richard Tarling dipped under 300 to close the squad of 16 runners.
In the Veteran ranks, Dave Branfoot was 3rd V45 and Jim Cooper was 2nd V50.
Mark Cursons and Chris Finill won the V60 and V65 competitions respectively.
The Team finished 7th A Team in Division one with Highgate continuing to pull away from other Clubs in the season’s battle for first place honours.
For the women’s team and showing just how strong the Met League competition is, our first scorer was Eilish O’Grady in 18th place having finished 6th at the County champs only a week earlier. National League squad member Catherine O’Connor was next home in 24th place.
Emily Antcliffe was 3rd scorer in 27th and currently enjoying a purple patch of good form as she demonstrated by also taking 3rd female in the rescheduled Hyde Park 10Km the following morning in a sprightly 40:19!
Issy Jones was next home in 46th position just ahead of a welcome return from Federica De Caria in 50th just seconds ahead of Jo Finill in 53rd. Jen Keal was 97th and nice to see Kelly Katie Watkins out again in 100th with Renata Olas finishing 131st.
The senior A team placed an excellent 6th on the day in division 1 with the B team taking 1st place in division 3 – well done to all the runners.
In the junior races Charlie Robert led home the boys team in 40th place and Amae Van Zyl was an impressive 7th for the girls with Beth and Katie Dalton also running consistently well to take finish 12 & 13th. In the u13 girls, Vivienne Olas was first home of the trio in 19th position.
A very cold day for the athletes competing at Trent Park at the combined Middx and Herts CC championships. Congrats to Joseph, Luca and Zac for their third place team medals and very well done to Louise Bruce who finished second in the U11 boys race as he also led the team to third place medals! Amae Van Zyl was fifth in the U17 womens race as was Luca Russo in U15 boys and a strong sixth place for Eilish O’Grady in the senior womens race.
The results are now posted here although detailed team scores are not showing in the official results yet. Further match reports to follow and below are Mikes photos from the event.
Junior Men
Well supported by Zack Atek, Luca Matharu and Joe Tarling battled it out for first Harrow athlete honours with Luca moving away in the latter stages up the long drag to the finish. In this Junior Men’s race we suspected beforehand that we had a team capable of a podium finish and we were not disappointed. Highgate and Shaftesbury took gold and silver with Harrow securing bronze team medals.
Senior Men
There were some notable performances. Damian Nevins again demonstrated his outstanding commitment to the Club by travelling all the way from Sweden for this fixture. This is the sort of effort that we should all really respect next time we think journeying 20 miles to a fixture is a big deal!
In a race packed with quality he was justly rewarded with 5th place. Jack Whitebury, Micheal O’Sullivan and Tejas Hirani clustered well, all finishing within a minute of one another.
Jim Cooper put in his solid shift and a little way behind, Daniel Draper made a very welcome return to the club after a 15 gap since his last cross country appearance for the Club. Newcomer, Henry Jakszta and the more established Richard Tarling continued to improve and both clearly enjoyed the heavy going. Martin Aslan and Jabil Chibwana closed the team with steady runs in challenging conditions.
Teamwise this was a disappointing result and a series of understandable but late withdrawals hurt us. Consequently. we couldn’t place in the first three and, unfortunately, only finished 11 runners in the 12 to score contest.
Thank you to Mike Lepps, Mark Cursons and Declan Trainor for their on course support and to Jim Cooper for coordinating entries and dishing out numbers on the day.
The Squad now looks forward to its next fixture – Race 4 of the Met League series at Welwyn on 11th January.
It’s been a quiet couple of weeks since the last Met League race reported on below but some of our athletes have been busy searching out racing opportunities. First off was the Telford 10Km race on Sunday, last week, with 4 Harrow athletes racing including new recruit Chris Davies, whose chip time was 31:16. Well done Chris and thanks for making such an impact on our Tuesday night training sessions in Harrow!
Next home for Harrow was Daniel Titcombe in 31:26 with Michael Cattini in close pursuit with 31:42. To complete the quartet was Chris Hudson, returning from a lengthy injury but now rediscovering hard interval training sessions at uni and clocking a not to be sniffed at 31:55 😉
Chris H. was in action again last Friday, this time at Battersea Park in the 5 mile event and recorded 25:20.
