Heathside's ladies lead the way in Met League opener

Saturday's Met League opener saw over 100 Heathsiders hit the bone-dry Claybury course, where we had some promising individual runs from our young athletes, our women teamed up to make it a winning start to the season, and we finished the afternoon with our two best runners racing it out at the front end of the men's field.

Young athletes

• Our boys' under-11 team was a literal one-man show as Max Beasley finished a very creditable 12th out of 63. Team Max (as they are now known) finished in 11th place out of 15 teams.

• The girls' U11s duo Hattie and Rebecca took advantage of their relative strength in numbers to finish higher up: 6th team out of 14.

• Ruairi M pulled out another brilliant individual performance, finishing second in a field of 56 in the U13 boys. With supporting runs from Oliver O'Connor (28th), Jack Davis-Black (43rd) and Lucas Maher (44th), Team Heathside finished ninth overall from at least* 20 teams (*the results spreadsheet was a bit vague about the exact number).

• The U13 girls team finished seventh of 17 in a field of 50 runners, thanks to Matilda Heath (21st), Nel Swinhoe (22nd) and Fabienne Weston (46th).

• Our junior men were short of numbers, with only Jem O'Flaherty and Leo Hanson (U15) in attendance. Jem's seventh place finish from 88 was nonetheless a highlight of the day and left the team in 20th place of 27.

• The junior ladies team finished 14th out of 20, thanks to Ella Conlon, Anna Macallister and Naomi Conlon.

Seniors

Our ladies' numbers were way down on our last trip to Claybury - 21 finished on Saturday versus 38 in the previous instalment. Despite being short-staffed, the team pulled out a stormer of a result, winning the fixture by the slenderest possible margin.

An intriguing battle developed at the front end of the ladies race between Ella and Rebecca Bunting, who finished eighth and ninth respectively. Captain Rebecca Piggott followed them in, with Sue nudging ahead of Sarah and Celine nicking the coveted last 'A' team spot. Our 'B' and 'C' teams were riven by absentees but still managed to punch their weight in their divisions which is testament not only to our strength as a club, but also the commitment and tenacity of all who turned out on the day.

The men's race was an absolute corker, with the usual Claybury fun of 470-odd blokes being sent at a gap in the trees that will just about admit five at a time. Leading the Heathside charge was AKS, logging his best-ever Met League finish in third place, a handful of seconds ahead of Tom, who claimed fifth.

Getting two men inside the top five is a new high for the club, although it was then a bit of a wait before we got any other runners across the line. Special mention to James W, coming back from illness, who survived a fairly unpleasant race and still logged an 'A' team finish, and commiserations to Kimon who survived a nasty scare on the downhill in the first lap (ran straight off the course and into a bush) only to succumb to a twisted ankle on the second lap. Hope to have you back soon!

Another honourable mention (though it pains me to say it) to Dave Hellard, who brought along a job lot of cowbells for support purposes. Now we're back up to full noise-making capacity we should hopefully have driven all the other teams mad by Christmas. Incidentally, I've never understood why cows need bells (other than the old chestnut about their horns not working). Is it to stop them from catching mice?

League roundup

• Our women's 'A' team nicked the win by one single point from Highgate. Although huge congratulations are due to our prima donnas, this was largely due to their supporting cast. Strong runs by our first three 'B' teamers (Katie, Anna and Colette) were enough to push Highgate's sixth counter down the scoring.

• Our 'B' team finished just below midway in the top division, but will hopefully be bolstered by a few returning runners for the next fixture.

• Our ladies 'C' team finished toward the bottom of the second division. But should be able to improve through the season, as per above.

• Our men's team finished mid-table in the first division, with our 'B' team dead last. Hopefully we can remedy that with some strong turnouts in the remaining fixtures. Our men's 'C' team is mid-division in the second division. I don't know what happens if one of our 'C' teams gets promoted into a division our 'B' team has been relegated out of. It makes my head hurt just to think about it.

• Both our men's and women's vet teams are off to a solid-ish if unspectacular start, lying fourth and third in their respective divisions. We'll need to get a few more oldies out on the course if we're to get the silverest of silverware again this year, and think how much more fun XC is than bingo.

Senior Ladies

8 Ella Waldman 22:42
9 Rebecca Bunting 23:05
15 Rebecca Piggott 23:52
21 Sue Rust 24:16 2nd V35
24 Sarah Swinhoe 24:24 2nd V45
31 Celine Murray 24:55
35 Katie Sandford 25:14
40 Anna O'Hare 25:35
45 Colette Monahan 26:04
69 Louisa Pointon 27:31
79 Jackie Wastell 28:11 3rd V55
93 Estibaliz Guijarro 29:05
98 Jo Irwin 29:13
107 Edyta Szot 29:48 5th V40
114 Ruth Miller 30:22 5th V55
116 Katherine Vinnicombe 30:30
120 Noelle O'Regan 30:42
135 Rachel Weston 31:39 3rd V45
151 Kim Butler 33:18
161 Laura Boothman 34:38
171 Frances Powrie 36:03

Junior women (U17 + U15)
46 Ella Conlon 19:37
53 Anna McAllister 20:51
59 Naomi Conlon 21:29

Junior men (U17 + U15)
7 Jem O'Flaherty 14:25
84 Leo Hanson 19:02

U13 girls
21 Matilda Heath 13:24
22 Nel Swinhoe 13:26
46 Fabienne Weston 15:23

U13 boys
2 Ruairi McGonagle 11:00
28 Oliver O'Connor 12:35
43 Jack Davis-Black 13:08
44 Lucas Maher 13:20

U11 (mixed)
12 Max Deasy 5:57
24 Hattie Munday 6:20
58 Rebecca Beliossi 7:17

Senior Men

3 Adam Kirk-Smith 25:02
5 Tom Aldred 25:09
71 Dan McKeown 28:40
78 Tom Livermore 28:53
86 Andy Barnes 29:02
94 James Wooldridge 29:16
98 Richard Macaulay 29:24
100 Simon Dunderdale 29:28
107 Simon Brown 29:37
111 David Hellard 29:41
116 Chris Shipley 29:47
122 Martin Potter 29:59
127 Michael Heaney 30:12
131 Sion Lewis 30:17
133 Mario Cadete 30:18
147 Peter Northall 30:43
148 Dave Browne 30:43 (2nd V50)
149 Adam Mitchell 30:43
152 Chris Hartley 30:48 (3rd V50)
153 William Griffiths 30:50
154 Stuart Meiklejohn 30:51
174 Paul Jarman 31:20
187 Nick Haward 31:42
191 Jonathan Litchfield 31:52
192 Ash Abrha 31:53
195 Steve Armstrong 31:56
196 Andy Owen 31:57
200 Mark Anderson 32:01
201 Lee Connor 32:02
207 Dominic Jackson 32:17
211 Paul Beale 32:25
213 Marco Luna 32:27
215 Mark Jefford 32:29
217 Terry Lines 32:32
222 Paul Mercer 32:47
223 John Flahive 32:48
227 Gareth Marshall 33:00
234 Matt Collins 33:06
238 Mark Bailey 33:11
244 Matt Fassnidge 33:18
255 David Fallon 33:33
262 Joe McKeown 33:44
265 Chris Burke 33:50
269 Jake Spencer 33:59
280 Michael Cockings 34:15
288 Pete Crockford 34:27
291 Norman Mitchell 34:35
311 Tony Killilea 35:19
313 Rajiv Ratan 35:23
320 David Hallam 35:51
346 Ian Shurmer 36:35
353 James Connell 36:45
356 Jonathan Powell 36:55
367 Ian Whisson 37:35
370 John McKnight 37:39
371 Rob Shulman 37:41
373 Roger Wagland 37:44
402 Alex Macaulay 39:10
407 Russell Weston 39:35
413 Charles Redfern 40:04
428 Alun Nash 41:24
434 Ken Townson 41:33
435 Gavin Evans 41:34
446 Neil Davies 42:34 (3rd V65)
447 Dave Walton 43:10
457 Adrian Essex 44:25