First wins and medals of 2024 at the Middlesex cross-country championships
This week’s report includes the first cross-country race of the year – the Middlesex champs at Horsenden Hill, as well as the Country to Capital ultra and the BeFit open.
Middlesex County XC Championships, Horsenden Hills, 6.1.24
Simon Baker sent in the following report from Horsenden Hill:
The Middlesex County Championships returned to Horsenden Hills and as usual the course, which had been significantly softened up by the mid-week rain provided a proper challenge as the hard dry courses of the autumn become a distant memory.
It would have been hard to top last year's success for the club especially with several teams weakened due to illness and school holidays. However, with wins for the U20 Men and U15 Girls as well as silver medals for both Senior Teams and U11 Girls with the U13 Boys 3rd there was silverware galore as well as fine 3rd places for Amy Kirk (U15G) and Rory Willis (U13B).
The races started with the U11's with the boys led home by Kai Duberry in 6th place. The girls did even better packing well with Edith Deakin first home to finish 9th, 10th and 13th and secure 2nd place only 2 points behind champions SBH.
Due to the heavy ground the course was changed to feature two smaller laps. The Boys age group is highly competitive and Rory Willis who won the last Met League stayed in contention to the end finishing in 3rd only 4s behind the winner. With Alex Kirk 9th and Aidan Lappin 9th they secured the team bronze. Unfortunately with only two girls there was no chance to defend the U13G title won last year but Alice Rockhill in her first race of the season was 29th.
The heavy ground led Dylan Mills to drop out during the race with he and Ennio Kaloukian both close to the front. Ennio finished 10th with Tam Mergia 23rd. The U15 Girls team was well supported with 8 taking part5 of which in their first year as U15's. With a quality feed led by Jorjia March (Barnet) last seasons U13G national champion Amy Kirk produced a great sprint finish to secure 3rd place. Margot Hunt and Rosa Cormacain had both run closely together finishing in 7th and 8th to secure the team title.
The U17 Women saw Ishanna Cannell finish 6th and Lucy Corkin in her first race of the season 8th. In the Men's race which combines U20 and U17's Oliver O'Connor finished 1st overall and with Abel Woldegiorgis 10th and Fred Beale 13th they secured the Junior Mens title. In the U17's George Saint was our first runner home in 9th and with David Baah-Okyere 19th and Artie Feeny Willings 35th they finished 6th in the team competiton.
In the Senior Women we had 6 runners with Jessica Prior the first home in 7th place. Millie Barnes and Ciera Kennedy were next in 12th and 14th place with Francesca Stocco our 4th scorer and with 54 points 2nd place was secured behind an ominously dominant TVH team.
The Senior Men's team were also without some big hitters and with 12,000m of thick mud to negotiate this was going to be a challenging race. The race lived up to it's billing with Highgate, TVH and LH runners all close to the front and the team positions swapped many times during the race. James Wooldridge slightly faded on the 4th lap to finish 7th with Joseph Young and Tom Aldred immediately behind and we were the first club with 3 finishers. Sion Lewis was 16th and Yann Sevestre 19th with the last scorer Peter Gould in 22nd place. TVH however had been packing well and took the title by just 2 points.
Races come thick and fast now with Met League next weekend, the Euro XC at Parliament the week after and then the Southern Championships all likely to be extra challenging and muddy due to the saturated ground.
U11 Boys (1,500m 34 finishers)
1st D Pascal (SBH) 6:41
15th Kai Duberry 7:46
27th William Edwards 8:40
30th Dominic Jeles 9:04
Team:- 1st SBH 8 pts, 6th London Heathside 72 pts
U11 Girls (1,500m 24 finishers)
1st L Graham (SMR) 7:23
9th Edith Deakin 8:23
10th Mathilda Hinson 8:29
13th Imogen Wraight 8:35
Team 1st SBH 30 pts, 2nd London Heathside 32 pts
U13 Boys (3000m 37 finishers)
1st J Hayward (ESM) 14:02
3rd Rory Willis 14:06
9th Alex Kirk 14:37
20th Aidan Lappin 15:53
27th Dominic Perkins 17:03
28th Alex Rankin 17:10
Team: 1st ESM 15 pts, 3rd London Heathside (Willis, Kirk, Lappin) 32 pts
U13 Girls (3000m 39 finishers)
1st K Dalton (Harrow) 15:00
29th Alice Rockhill 18:09
39th Amba Coleman 19:56
No London Heathside Team
U15 Boys (4,000m 43 finishers)
1st D Jelfs (SMR) 15:06
10th Ennio Kaloukian 16:34
23rd Tam Mergia 17:58
No London Heathside Team
U15 Girls (4000m 26 finishers)
1st J March (Barnet) 16:41
3rd Amy Kirk 17:23
7th Margot Hunt 18:08
8th Rosa Cormacain 18:31
10th Kiara Corkin 19:27
12th Maya Westgate 19:58
14th Lettice Gundry 20:02
15th Kitty Kelsall 20:18
16th Lila Blustin 20:20
Team:- 1st London Heathside (Kirk, Hunt, Cormacain) 18 pts
U17 Women (6,000m 17 finishers)
1st A Massey (TVH) 24:03
6th Ishanna Cannell 26:33
8th Lucy Corkin 26:53
No London Heathside Team
U17 Men (6,000m 38 finishers)
1st T Chadwick (Highgate) 20:18
9th George Saint 22:09
19th David Baah-Okyere 23:38
35th Artie Feeny Willings 26:30
38th Ben Ryan 28:59
Team 1st Highgate 12 pts, 6th London Heathside 63 pts
U20 Men (6,000m 26 finishers)
1st Oliver O'Connor 20:05
10th Abel Woldegiorgis 22:04
13th Fred Beale 22:36
20th Luke Pike Mullins 23:42
21st Janak Subberwal 24:12
Team 1st London Heathside (O'Connor, Woldegiorgis, Beale) 24 pts
Senior Women (8,000m 87 finishers)
1st K Olding (TVH) 32:50
7th Jessica Prior 34:53
12th Millie Barnes 35:35
14th Ciera Kennedy 36:03
21st Francesca Stocco 37:25
25th Genevieve Weston 37:53
53rd Caroline White 45:34
Team:- 1st TVH 13 pts, 2nd London Heathside (Prior, Barnes, Kennedy, Stocco) 54 pts
Senior Men (12,000m 133 finishers)
1st T Fawden (Highgate) 41:07
7th James Wooldridge 43:35
8th Joseph Young 43:44
9th Tom Aldridge 43:51
16th Sion Lewis 45:06
19th Yann Sevestre 45:49
22nd Peter Gould 46:14
24th Oliver Negus 46:55
34th Ewan Gault 48:43
36th Keith Geoghegan 49:07
39th Conor Brown 49:26
41st William de Cothi 49:38
57th Martin Potter 51:51
64th Edward Samuel 52:55
75th Matthew Collins 55:21
76th Andrew Hislop 55:36
78th Christopher Hartley 55:45
83rd Valentin Valeanu 56:55
103rd Pep Pamies 60:15
107th Mihaly Zoltan Jeles 60:59
120th Leo Pemberton 64:59
Team:- 1st TVH 79 pts, 2nd London Heathside (Wooldridge, Young, Aldred, Lewis, Sevestre, Gould) 81 pts
Heathside men at Horsenden Hill
Heathside women at Horsenden Hill
43 mile Country to Capital, 6.1.24
Damien Lane sent in the following report from the first ultra of 2024:
Three intrepid Heathsiders braved the early January rain and mud to complete the first Ultra race of the year, the 16th running of the 43 mile Country to Capital race on Saturday 6th January.
Damien Lane finished 17th in 6 hours, 2 minutes and 57 seconds, while Tony Shearer came in 84th with a time of 7::14:35 and Dan Johns finished 161st in 8:06:55.
All good fun. In a type 2 kind of way.
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Be-Fit Open, Lee Valley, 7.1.24
Among a host of PB's at the Be-Fit Open Sam Brown set a new Club Record in the Indoor 400m
60m
Round 1
H7 2nd Tobias Toth-Stevens (U17M) 7.83 PB by 0.09s
H12 3rd Oscar Hall (U20M) 7.36
Round 2
H9 5th Oscar Hall (U20M) 7.38
200m
H4 2nd Gabriel Edwards (U15B) 26.60
H6 2nd Tobias Toth-Stevens (U17M) 25.39 PB by 1.23s
400m
H5 4th Sam Brown (U17M) 50.32 New Club Record
60mH
Round 1
H1 3rd Gabriel Edwards (U15B) 9.69
Round 2
H1 2nd Gabriel Edwards (U15B) 9.46 PB
300m
SM H1 3rd Vladimir Woodham Smith 37.91 PB
SW H1 2nd Ivy Paitoo (U15G) 46.70
SW H3 1st Magdeline Paitoo (U17W) 41.48
BMC Grand Prix, Sheffield 7.1.24
1500m
Race C 5th Gus Tomlinson Smith 4:02.73
Parkrun
97 Heathsiders ran in parkrun last Saturday. Congratulations for first place finishes go to: Rebecca Piggott (Finsbury Park, 18:37), Emily Reichert (Highbury Fields, 20:20), Johnny Forsyth (Whitstable, 18:18), Ed Bodel (Ally Pally, 19:03), Graham Wilkinson (Queen’s, 19:10), Jose Sabroso (Sunny Hills, 19:30). Full results can be found here.
Compiled by Emilia with reports by Simon Baker, Damien Lane.
Photos: Caroline White, Martin Potter
Mud and Heathside men at Horsenden Hill