London Champs and Youth Games, Valencia Marathon

Relentless rain and blustery breeze over a wintery-looking Parliament Hill matched the mood of the weekend in what was an understandably subdued occasion by normal standards, writes club XC captain Chris Hartley.

Nonetheless, the spirit of togetherness that characterises Heathside saw no fewer than 69 members pull on club vests and spikes to take on the hills of Hampstead Heath, in what turned out to be a triumph for the club. Heathside Women shook off the weather and gloom to race to the title of London Cross-Country Champions! 

Starting with the women’s race, we had 22 Heathside runners of the 203 competitors in the 'four to score' team competition. Ella Waldman (8th), Rachel Seckl (10th), Rachel Newstead (21st), and Celine Murray (24th) showed what determined cross-country running is all about, taking on the mud and hills with the commitment and grace of true athletes. For any club to place four runners in the top 25 in the London Champs is a real achievement, and the girls duly ran out as worthy champions, ahead of Dulwich, and Victoria Park, respectively.

Leigh James and Sue Rust (35th and 36th respectively) did great work keeping the other clubs’ runners at bay. Cathy Jeremiah put in a real captain’s shift, coming home in 65th place while still far from fully fit. Popular new Fantasy Met League pick, Ula Cartwright-Finch came in 61st, while Kim Butler proudly acted as the club’s back-marker, finishing 179th. Excellent running all round.

Both races took place in steady rain that quickly proved too much for the paper running numbers provided, although the women seemed to do a bit better than the men. A few of us grimly held on to our numbers as they slid forlornly from our vests, but by the end of the event several hundred soggy, useless running numbers littered the course. Apologies to the parkkeepers (and a special mention to Mark Anderson who somehow managed to get the timing chip rained off his ankle as well).

The men’s race (10km) showed Adam Kirk-Smith is making a rapid return to full fitness after surgery, finishing at the head of Heathside’s 47 runners. Chris Norris took the honours in the Brooker/Norris face-off this weekend. The early indications are that Chris has the edge on the hilly courses, whilst Andrew is quicker on the flat. (I look forward to putting that theory to the test at the Wormwood Scrubs Met League on 5th December!) Richard Macaulay (48th) - an early challenger for Most Improve Athlete of the Season - claimed fourth spot for Heathside, and with it the scalp of cross-country legend Martin Potter (49th). Andy Barnes (51st) and Charles Hardy (54th) had strong runs, and Dan McKeown put the memory of Stevenage behind him with a cracking 58th place finish. Mark Anderson (c. 93rd) and Jonathan Hopkin (94th) got involved in a duel that lasted all 10km, with Mark coming out on top in the last kilometre, only for Ryan McCrickerd (83rd) to sweep past both of them on the final stretch.

Sam Thompson (124th), Jonathan Litchfield (127th), Gareth Marshall (136th), Stuart Meiklejohn (149th), Dom Jackson (149th), Nick Haward (150th), Joe McKeown (153rd), and Mario Cadete (164th) can all look on their results with pride (they all beat me!). Hassan Nahal (287th) gave the course a good kicking in his beloved football boots. In the 50 minutes + club, Tim Sander, Darrell Osborne, Ken Townson, and Bob Gould showed why cross-country is such a fantastic sport, gritting their teeth and doing their club proud amongst the back half of the field.

A club welcome to the cross-country debutants, who chose a tough race for their maiden outing. If anyone wants to see the real spirit of cross-country in action, then look no further than Bob, the vet’s vet, who gave us all a lesson in how to make cross-country running a sport for life.

In the Men’s team competition, Heathside came in a creditable 6th position from 25 teams competing. The Champions this season were Serpentine, with Hercules Wimbledon in second, and H*ghgate in third.

Many thanks to all who came out to take part, and congratulations on completing a tough course in difficult conditions. Next up is the North London Championships, on Saturday 21st!

Elsewhere

• We had lots of young athletes battling it out for their respective boroughs (and also churning up the course a bit for the seniors) in the London Youth Games XC race at Parliament Hill. I've included all I've found in the results below but please give me a shout if you know of someone who's slipped the net.

• Dan Madams cruised to 2:44 at the Valencia Marathon (my words, not his - I gather it was a bit on the warm side). Simon Hazel and Kate Creaney were also sweating it out on the course, with the latter securing a very creditable 3:51.

• We had two runners at the Leeds Abbey Dash 10k: "On a mild autumn day this is a flat fast race, with a great depth in standard and well worth a trip," says Ed Samuels. Unfortunately, on this particular autumn day the weather was absolutely wretched and Ed only arrived four minutes before the start, so was probably at Stresscon One. Josie H was also out battling the Yorkshire elements, hopefully without sending her heartrate through the roof like Ed.

• Slightly longer ago Henry H spent his birthday with c. 50,000 other runners at the NY Marathon (which is either the best or the worst present ever). Buoyed by the famous crowds and iconic route through the five boroughs, Henry said, "I found the first half flew by and it wasn't till 23 miles in that it really started to hurt climbing the mile long ascent towards Central Park." His PB of 3:16 was all the more impressive as he spent the entire race pretending he was driving an invisible HGV (see pic below.)

• We also had runners in action at parkrun (check out this week's results). There was also extremely shaky video footage of Phil Hogg's beer mile in Bermondsey on Friday 13th (1st place: Tom Fancett), which I've mislaid the link to. If you're inclined to queasiness, I don't recommend the video - there are no distressing images, but I suspect the cameraman may have been fairly well-oiled.

Results

London XC Championships & Youth Games, Parliament Hill, 14 November

U17M
23 David Keto 18:40
28 William Griffiths 18:51
49 Myles Calderazzo 19:43
66 Isaac Costley 20:16
75 Luke Gray 20:36
82 Antanas Weston 20:52

U17W
56 Molly Harrison 15:05
94 Dorothy Wright-Spinks 17:22
104 Grace Wright-Spinks 19:09

U15M
19 Jem O'Flaherty 11:38

U13M
18 Ruairi McGonagle 08:02

U11M
32 Arthur Reed 06:09

U15W
43 Meg Naylor 08:51
88 Lily McKay 09:33
179 Rachel Finke 12:49

Senior Men

19 Adam Kirk-Smith 35:41
27 Chris Norris 36:20
32 Andrew Brooker 36:45
48 Richard Macaulay 37:37
49 Martin Potter 37:40
51 Andy Barnes 37:45
54 Charles Hardy 37:53
58 Dan McKeown 38:09
61 Jacob Phillips 38:18
66 Tom Livermore 38:24
83 Ryan McCrickerd 39:15
TBC Mark Anderson c. 39:30
94 Jonathan Hopkin 39:32
100 Luke Wynne 39:51
103 Sergio Di Noto 40:01
120 Manuel Caeiro Vigo 40:28
124 Sam Thompson 40:35
127 Jonathan Litchfield 40:37
130 Gareth Marshall 40:42
136 Stuart Meiklejohn 40:57
149 Dom Jackson 41:23
150 Nick Haward 41:24
153 Joseph McKeown 41:28
163 Jacob Howe 41:48
164 Mario Cadete 41:54
169 Chris Hartley 42:05
170 Marco Luna 42:07
180 Jake Spencer 42:30
184 Rob Shulman 42:39
186 Pete Crockford 42:41
189 Tony Shearer 42:46
202 Marcus Tillotson 43:30
204 Elliott Reed 43:32
213 Ollie Hopkins 44:00
219 James Dark 44:23
232 James Felstead 44:49
234 John McKnight 44:59
242 Henry Hamilton 45:14
287 Hassan Nahal 48:01
296 Ray Yau 48:41
298 Richard Peachment 48:48
300 Mark Kelder 49:11
303 Nick De Sausmarez 49:30
306 Gavin Parish 49:51
327 Tim Sander 52:27
330 Darrell Osborne 53:16
335 Ken Townson 54:42
340 Adrian Essex 56:07
347 Bob Gould 58:31

Senior Women

8 Ella Waldman 24:24 ♕
10 Rachel Seckl 24:37 ♕
21 Rachel Newstead 25:26 ♕
24 Celine Murray 25:31 ♕
35 Leigh James 26:10
36 Sue Rust 26:13
49 Colette Monahan 26:43
52 Ourida Sid 26:47
61 Ula Cartwright-Finch 27:20
75 Angela Howe 27:39
84 Satu Hietanen 27:56
93 Jodie Gray 28:16
97 Jennifer Wing 28:26
101 Elspeth Storrar 28:34
114 Noelle O’Regan 29:29
118 Louisa Pointon 29:40
120 Jess Vinluan 29:45
128 Emilia Vynnycky 30:05
134 Caroline White 30:16
149 Ruth Miller 31:32
179 Kim Butler 34:57

♕ London Champions

Valencia Marathon, 15 November

204 Dan Madams 2:44:35
6107 Simon Hazel 3:45:07
7157 Kate Creaney 3:51:26 

New York City Marathon, 1 November
2048 Henry Hamilton 3:16:03 

Leeds Abbey Dash

263   34:45 Ed Samuel

1116  42:18 Josie Hinton

Old Deer Park 10k, Sunday 15 November
162 Kat Maskell  53:55 

After Adoption Regents Park 10k, Sunday 15 November
44 Monika Newton 44:37