Heathsiders haul in the medals at Middlesex XC champs
This year's county champs were held in Hillingdon on a course mostly famous for: a) its short but very nasty hill, b) not being Wormwood Scrubs.
Ruairi McGonagle was the star of the early races, nicking the U13 title by a single second. With supporting runs from Thomas Archer and Oliver O'Connor, we also bagged a team bronze. Rose Garrett (8th) shone for the bronze medal-winning U13 girls, backed up by Nell Swinhoe (15th) and Mathilda Heath (21st). In a closely-contested race, the girls were only one point shy of taking gold.
The next generation of our all-conquering ladies team
There were outstanding performances from Jem O'FLaherty (2nd) and Liam Garrett (4th) in the U17 category, which were enough to win the county gold with Antanas Weston (17th) completing the scoring team. Meanwhile James Wooldridge earned silver in the U20 race with a very impressive run, apparently aided by one of his rivals sprinting off to the finish line at the end of the first lap.
Our women were a bit down on numbers but still came within a whisker of retaining their county title. Kelly led the way in fifth place with Sarah not far behind. Ula and Josie completed our scoring quartet. This left the team well clear of TVH in second place, but six points adrift of host club Hillingdon.
In the men's team, Tom put in another excellent run to earn himself county bronze. The best of the rest of our men was a bullocking run from Rich. The late-arriving Tom Livermore might have done quite well if the race had been chip-timed, but it wasn't and he didn't. Sadly, we were off the six-to-score podium, but that made us eligible for the 12-to-score which we duly won.
Our next fixture is this Saturday's Met League in the more familiar surroundings of Trent Park. There's also the option to run Sunday in Watford if you made cross country your New Year's resolution.
Results
Middlesex Cross Country Championships, Uxbridge, 7/1/2017
Under 11 Boys - 1,500m (approx)
12 Max Deasy 08:10
Under 11 Girls - 1,500m (approx)
10 Hattie Munday 07:55
Under 13 Boys - 3,000m (approx)
1 Ruairi McGonagle 10:56
13 Thomas Archer 11:52
15 Oliver O'Connor 11:56
42 Lucas Maher 13:21
45 Arthur Reed 13:36
Under 13 Girls - 3,000m (approx)
8 Rose Garrett 12:32
15 Nell Swinhoe 12:55
21 Mathilda Heath 13:13
33 Lorna Dumbleton 13:59
58 Zuzanna Stachura 16:21
61 Fabienne Weston 16:58
Under 15 Boys - 4,000m (approx)
11 Jake Evans 14:58
34 Stan Brown 16:30
35 Lewis Selwyn 17:32
Under 15 Girls - 4,000m (approx)
28 Ella Conlon 17:48
36 Evelyn Dumbleton 18:30
45 Martina Curcio 20:03
Under 17 Men - 6,000m (approx)
2 Jem O'Flaherty 21:01
4 Liam Garrett 21:29
17 Antanas Weston 24:14
22 Kenneth Boulton 25:58
Under 17 Women - 5,000m (approx)
15 Meg Naylor 21:10
18 Lily McKay 22:06
22 Phoebe Crockford 23:50
Under 20 Women - 5,000m (approx)
4 Genevieve Weston* 21:54
Under 20 Men - 8,000m (approx)
2 James Wooldridge 27:06
14 Jacob Phillips* 30:16
Senior Women - 8,000m (approx)
5 Kelly Thorneycroft 31:25
8 Sarah Swinhoe 32:23
14 Ula Cartwright-Finch 33:33
19 Josie Hinton 34:01
20 Colette Monahan 34:05
27 Elizabeth Drake 35:21
29 Satu Hietanen 35:26
44 Louisa Pointon 37:40
56 Ruth Miller 39:33
57 Kimberli Butler 39:41
75 Noelle O'Regan 44:33
Senior Men - 12,000m (approx)
3 Tom Aldred 38:15
29 Richard Macaulay 42:40
35 Daniel Madams 43:39
37 Simon Dunderdale 43:46
44 Daniel Johns 44:40
47 Mario Cadete 44:50
51 Chris Hartley 45:28
56 Jake Spencer 45:44
59 John Driscoll 46:02
63 Steve Armstrong 46:17
65 Jonathan Litchfield 46:28
66 Mark Anderson 46:30
67 Mark Jefford 46:33
70 Lee Connor 46:52
72 Asmelash Abrha 47:16
78 Matt Collins 48:09
83 Stuart Meiklejohn 49:19
88 Francois Barou 49:45
89 Dominic Jackson 49:47
91 Mark George 50:09
112 Tom Livermore 52:16
123 Andrew Owen 53:45
134 Marco Maserati 56:02
136 Elliot Read 56:50
147 Tim Sander 59:42
QEOP 10k
30 Cas Wright 39:44 (2nd female)
Greenwich Park 10k
3 Dan McKeown 38:08
4 Joe McKeown 38:58