Senior mens report: The senior team kicked off their cross country season with round 1 of the Met League held at Claybury. Seventeen ran in the men’s team in good conditions with the main challenge being the steep up and down section in the woods. It’s a little nerve racking burning out your legs going up to then have to go straight back down!
The team were led home by the rapid Daniel Titcomb in 29th. Jack Whitebury in 66th enjoyed a run without a buggy and was closely followed by young Zack Atek who was also 7th in the U20s. Captain Jim Cooper came home in 108th and 3rd in the V50s followed by 800m specialist Joshua Poncia in 121st and then V60 first placed Mark Cursons in 123rd. Chris Jones followed in 130th and Simon Sly made it a 3rd family completion of the day in 180th.
Met league debutant John Corcoran ran well for 196th before heading off to top up the calories at a chocolate show in London. Chris Finill also won his V65 age group in 202nd, Rob Hawkes (244th), debutant Daniel Clark (264th) and Nick Andrews (271st) pulled one another around for decent runs.
Jabbil Chibwana was next in 320th with Nick Jones 349th (4th v65), Martin Aslan 368th and Tom Morris bringing the team home in 382nd. Some of us retreated to the Woodford club bar for a well-deserved beer or coffee with the women’s team who we did appreciate encouraging us on our runs. All in all it was an enjoyable first round which left us in 8th place in division 1 (of 15 teams).
The venue for round 2 on 9th November is closer to home at Horsenden Hill which hopefully will see a few more of our athletes across all ages in action!
Michael Cattini stormed to victory as he won the Middlesex County 10Km title this morning at Victoria Park in a swift 31:24! Jack Whitebury (34:04) and Tejus Hirani also ran strongly (35.26) – not sure if there were team titles at stake but well done all!
Also featuring well at the Ealing Half Marathon today, was Terry Mackin who ran 79:25 for the 13.1 miles and this a week after winning the tough Moor Park 10Km in a shade under 38 minutes. Issy Jones had great run to finish in 92:21 with dad Nick not far behind in 1:42:05. Tim Allman ran 1:43:43, Graham’s time is unknown and Bruno was pacing at the 2:20 mark!
Saturday was the turn of the younger athletes in the seasons opening NWLL fixture held at Horsenden Hill – thankfully dryer and warmer conditions greeted the athletes after the challenges of the previous week and Thursday! Results just posted.
Very warm weather greeted the senior teams for the afternoon road relay races at Aldershot yesterday although I think our junior athletes had somewhat wetter conditions to cope with in the morning.
Our senior mens team was somewhat weaker than last year but we did field a masters V60 team which placed 5th in a time which would have won last years event! Mark Cursons ran the overall quickest v60 time of the day by 2 seconds so hopefully a medal will eventually arrive in the post.
In the junior races we fielded a U17 womens team of Amae, Sian and Annabelle who placed 20th and a foundation to build upon for the balance of the winter season 😉
In the U17 mens race Luca and Samuel were short of a runner to complete their team so hopefully we can improve there and well done Luca for being just 10s adrift of his excellent track 3Km time with 9:55.
We had 2 teams in the U15 girls with some strong performances resulting in positions of 21st and 39th – well done Katie, Beth, Nilou, Grace, Millie and Lara!
Thanks to Nick, Louise, Hazel and Issy for their support and helping with the photography!
Following a pause in news reports following the global cyber incident last month, below is a selection of recent news events sent to me during that time and congratulations to all the athletes concerned!
Nia Wedderburn-Goodison booked her place in the final of the World U20 championships held in Peru last week. Team captain Nia clocked 11.39 to qualify joint fastest. Nia placed an agonising 4t in the final in a time of 11.46.
At the other end of the age scale super vet Mark Cursons was in Sweden last month for the World Masters event where he also finished 4th in the final of the 5,000m with 17:16.
Another masters athlete still going strong was Chris Finill who won the British Masters M65 2Km steeplechase title at Derby in late July with 8.08!
Finally some very late results from the last few months which included the following very notable performances –
