A fair day weather wise greeted the athletes and supporters at Trent Park yesterday for the Met League season closer but the ground underfoot was the proverbial mud-bath and some flooding available to wash off the mud afterwards! The results are available here and below a few photos to remind you of the occasion.
The final league race of the season took place on an exceedingly muddy Trent Park course.
Micheal O’Sullivan was first scorer for the Club in 37th place closely followed by Jack Whitebury in 42nd and Julio Calvino Palomares in 47th. This run by Julio saw him finish 4th U20 runner for the season.
Curtis Stevens showed the benefits of his London Marathon training in 69th whist Jim Cooper came 81st. Fergal Keaney, one of the Club’s OCR specialists, made a welcome return in 96th with ever dependable, Tejas Hirani in 101st place.
Henry Johnson, away from Harrow School duties, finished 131st with Mark Smith hot on his heels in 134.
Special mention for Declan Traynor in 216th place who has been battling a knee injury for some time but has nevertheless been to several fixtures in a purely supporting role. Andy Hoiles made his second appearance this season and finished first M60 on the day.
Taking the season as a whole, we finished in 4th place, just behind Woodford Green despite beating them in 3 of the 5 fixtures. Our Achilles heel was our first match where the turn out was significantly down on other races. Next season I am confident that we can move up the rankings and eventually challenge for a podium spot.
Individually, Jim Cooper was the League’s first M45 and Chris Finill was first M60 – unbeaten in this category for 5 years.
Here are the athletes who ran in all 5 fixtures:
Nick Andrews
Jim Cooper
Rob Hawkes
Curtis Stevens
Adam Towle
Finally, sincere thanks to Jim Cooper for all his support behind the scenes and particularly on match days in making sure that we all get to the start line in the right frame of mind wearing the right number! And thanks also to Mike and Tony for supporting the team on match days when not competing.
Saturday saw just a handful of athletes travel to Beckenham Park for the Southern CC champs on quite a challenging twisting but firm course. In the mens U20s race Chris Hudson finished in 20th place while Jim Cooper had a strong race to finish 193rd in the senior race over 8.5miles. Chris Finill was 424th (and 1st v65) and Richard Tarling was 612th.
Amae Van Zyl had an excellent run to come home in 31st spot and Katie & Beth Dalton were 55 & 56th respectively in the U13’s girls.
Over the previous weekend Michael Cattini ran the London Cross Challenge at Parliament Hill finishing 20th in the U17’s race and Sofia Latham was 23rd in the U20’s. Sofia has been keeping us entertained with photos of her recent outward bound trip with BUAC team mates to a week in the Lake District and running around Coniston Lake – trust me Sofia, its a whole lot nicer in the summer months 😉
Running indoors over 800m in the London Indoor Games, Luca Matharu showed what great mid-winter form he’s in as he ran 1:57.12 for an indoor PB – well done Luca!
Someone else having fun doing something different is Jonathan Collier who has upped sticks from South London and is currently camped out in Spain’s Torrevieja region where he’s putting together some hard core endurance training and marathon preparation (don’t look at his run reports on Strava as it will make you weak at the knees!). Jonathan ran another strong half marathon on the 21st January at Santa Pola coming home in 10th place with 65:35!
Senior men: After the quagmire of Horsenden Hill the previous Saturday the ground underfoot at Welwyn was surprisingly firm.
Daniel Titcombe came in 16th and looks set to capitalise on this form into the coming OCR season. He was well backed up by Kevin Fini in 40th who showed strong commitment by travelling from South London on the day.
Micheal O’Sullivan continued his good form from the Middlesex Championships with 45th whilst Julio Calvino Palomares and Tejas Hirani both improved 20 places on Match 3 to secure 59th and 65th respectively. The ever-dependable Jim Cooper put in another solid shift, he now heads up the League’s V45 category heading into the last race at Trent Park where he may have to hold off Terry Mackin for top honours.
Graeme Jones and Joe Gammell both made welcome returns whilst Lewis Sills completed his first run for the Club in a Harrow vest purchased just 20 minutes before the gun!
Teamwise, we were a little weaker than at Uxbridge but still achieved 4th place in Division 1. We remain in 4th place overall for the season but a decent turnout at Trent Park on February 10th should see us in strong contention for a third place finish.
In the U17s race, Joseph Tarling had a very solid run with brother Sam and Charlie Robert also performing well in the combined U17/15 race. Our stand out performance award went to Katie Dalton in the U13s whose confidence is clearly sky high after last week and she ran home into second place with sister Beth 7th and Nilou Heath running well for 18th position – well done all of you!
With the breaking news that Ian Farr had passed away over Christmas there was a sombre mood amongst our runners at Horsenden Hill on Saturday for the Middx. County CC championships.
However, both Harrow AC’s Junior and Senior men produced performances worthy of his memory and the huge contribution he had made to the Club over many seasons. Phil Benson and I are both immensely proud of the response from all Club athletes.
The Junior team, led home by Chris Hudson took bronze team medals with Chris running very strongly for an individual silver. The results show how important every runners scoring position is and is often the difference between winning a medal and just missing out.
In the Senior race the team also gained bronze medals over a sodden 12k course on which a snorkel and flippers would have ranked alongside 18mm spikes as weapons of choice.
Journeying back from Sweden, Damian Nevins ran strongly for 14th place and was hotly pursued by Jack Whitebury in 15th and Micheal O’Sullivan in 17th,
Tejas Hirani raced well over the Christmas break and was rewarded with 27th and Chris Jones, back from Devon also ran strongly. Inspired by his London Marathon place for April, Curtis Stevens closed the six to score team in 32nd.
Thanks in particular to Jim Cooper for coordinating the onerous entry arrangements by entering a total of 55 Harrow athletes across all age groups.
Great support on the day was given by Graeme Jones and Declan Traynor both of whom, unable to run themselves, lent valuable support to the team effort.
There were further success for the U17 men as Michael Cattini also took the individual silver and the team of Zack Atek and Joseph Tarling were also rewarded with silver medals.
Sofia Latham was delighted to win the silver medal in the Womens U20 race despite eventually losing both her shoes! More duct tape will be required for the Inter Counties.
Amae Van Zyl had a strong race in the U15 girls race placing 6th and the U13 girls were once again the stars as Katie Dalton won the race with sister Beth placing 6th and a team gold medal with Soufia Atek and Leila Westcarr!
Today Harrow AC learnt of some very sad news. Ian Farr, who has been a member of Harrow Athletics Club for many years, and more recently our head coach, passed away just before Christmas following an illness. We know this may well be a huge shock to many of you and a cause of great sadness to those who knew Ian. In due course we will find a way to honour Ian and his commitment to Harrow AC.
We are very sorry to have to share this with you. Please do reach out to another coach or to a committee member if you feel this would be helpful. Jim Cooper and Emily Antcliffe are the club welfare officers if you have particular concerns either personally or about another athlete. All contact details are on the website here.
Ian’s family have since requested that this news is not reposted onto other social media channels including Facebook and Instagram – we are grateful for your support in observing this request.
Best Wishes,
Tony Bush (Club President) and Jason Kabel (Club Chairman)
In December 2021 Ian was the proud recipient of an England Athletics Regional Volunteer award:
Leader of the Year: Ian Farr, Harrow AC
Ian’s selfless dedication to his club has meant that grassroots athletics continues to be available to all, despite lockdown, and has also enabled the club to offer athletes opportunities to compete when competitions were hard to find. As Head Coach he is always busy, be it organising meetings, ensuring safe training environments during the Covid restrictions, encouraging young athletes to try different disciplines or helping athletes get to events. He has inspired those around him to also give their time to help the club succeed, and is a constant source of new ideas and suggestions for improvement. To crown all this Ian also set up a series of five open meetings over six weeks at the club track, allowing more than 600 athletes to come and compete, including a highly popular vets only race.
