An afternoon of brilliant sunshine and very slippery conditions underfoot was the order of the day at this fourth Met League fixture of the season held at Welwn Garden.
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.
