Met League 2018/19 #1: Heathside make strong start at Claybury

The cross country season kicked off properly last weekend with the start of the region's premier competition, in what now seems to be bordering on traditional Essex Autumn sunshine. With the lowdown on a solid start for both men and women's teams is the women's skipper, Sue Rust. Over to you, Sue:

"Our senior teams had a good start to the Met League season at Claybury, a fixture that is known for usually being warm but this time was baking. Very unfortunately two women collapsed during or after their senior race, although I don’t know whether the heat was a factor. This delayed the start of the men’s race by a fair bit as they needed to be tended to by medical staff – our very own Paul Jarman was seen helping one of the women. Here's hoping both make a full recovery.

As to the race itself...a very welcome sight back in Heathside colours, Adam Kirk-Smith won! The whole darn thing. By just one
second mind, but still, what a result! What’s more, we also had Tom Aldred in the top 10 and newcomer Seyfu, who’s still an U20, just behind in 13th. As a team, the first 12 Heathsiders to score finished fourth, our best start to the Met League since the 2015-2016 season. Completing the team were Thomas, Ewan, Charles, Sion, Liam, William, Peter, Dave and Leigh, with nearly all of them in the top 100 – impressive work lads. It’s exciting to have Charles back racing after a lay-off, and to see Liam Garrett joining William in
racing alongside the senior men as part of the U20 ranks. 

We have two men’s teams in division two, the B-team finishing fourth and the C-team 9th, with 10 runners scoring for each. Our golden oldies – the Vets teams, in other words – finished fourth and seventh in division one, with the C-team coming second in division two.
In total, we had 60 men out there racing – is it a record? I don’t know, but there’s definitely no complaining about the turnout. Weiter so Jungs :-)

Over on the women’s side, our A-team – Rebecca, Josie, Celine, Olivia, Kelly and Annabel – came in second after local rivals Highgate and before Victoria Park. That’s a much better start than last year, when our A-team finished fifth at the same fixture. We did go on to win the league though (oh yeah), so there’s obviously a lot that can happen between now and the end of the season. 

The women’s B-team, which was promoted to division one after last season, finished a classy sixth, and our C-team, which is in division two, also came sixth. In total we fielded 29 runners, including Met League first-timers Annabel Litchfield, Beth Wells, Lucy Stanfield, Maura Bellio, and Lydia Lindley – welcome on board ladies! And remember – everyone contributes!

On the Vets side, we had an A-team in second and a B-team in seventh in division one, and our C-team in seventh in division two.
A bit of colour on the A-team/race: In the final throes of her training for Frankfurt marathon at the end of the month, Josie led the Heathside ladies for most of the race but was overtaken in the last stretch by Rebecca, who is running well after a summer of cross-training. Celine had her highest Met League finish ever, coming in 17th . She was closely followed by Olivia, who it’s great to see still
scoring for the A-team after having been an important first-string scorer last season. Stomach problems unfortunately meant Kelly’s current form didn’t come through at Claybury, but she’s a tough cookie and there’s plenty more races to come. Annabel Litchfield, who joined Heathside within the last year or so and is a strong endurance runner, completed the A-team on her Met
League debut.

Now, with more details on how Heathside's next generation got on in the boys and girls races, here's Simon Baker:

The clubs youth XC teams compete before the Seniors at all Met League fixtures with their points contributing towards the Clubs overall score.  At Claybury Home advantage really showed with the organizers Woodford Green & Essex Ladies winning 4 of the 6 youth races However the 23 young Heathsiders who ran on Saturday performed strongly again despite the challenging hot conditions with one individual win, a third place and a second place and two third places in the team event.

The U11 Boys kicked the meeting off with Benjy Bediako triumphing in an exceptionally close finish, with 2 tenths of a second separating him from the Victoria Park Harrier in 2nd.  Noah Beckloff secured a top 10 finish with the team completed by Eric Beale who matched his time from last year and helped the team finish 2nd.  If they had had a 4th team member a team victory could have been secured. The U11 Girls saw Kiara Corkin make her 2nd cross country appearance for the club finishing a remarkable 3rd and the first 9 year-old home.  She was certainly the only runner on the day with fluffy socks and sparkly leggings.  Elkie Baker who is also 9 finished 16th.

The club had three runners in the U13 age group with Spike Blake 4th in the boys race recording the exact same time as last year. Gregory Berrisford-Sweet finished 24th and is having a solid cross country season having also finishing 24th in the last NWLL.  Hattie Munday once again was the only Heathsider in the U13 Girls finishing 12th, hopefully she will have more support in the future XC races this season.

The U15's and U17's run in one race over 3 laps of the narrow undulating Claybury course. First home for the men was Lemi Mideska in 4th with Jake Evans close behind in 5th.  The first U15 was Ruairi McGonagle in 27th but demonstrating the impact of the heat on the runners his time was 30s slower than last year.  A strong U15 representation was completed by Bedo Draskoczy, Jack Davis-Black, Raymond Edwin and Kit Naylor. The team finished 3rd overall continuing their great start to the season.

The Junior Women's team was led home by Rose Garrett who was 5th but the 2nd U15.  Mimi Blake (8th), Nell Swinhoe (20th) and Mia Manttan (23rd) made up the A team which finished 3rd overall.  The team managed enough runners to also score a B team with Matilda Heath, Edie Friedlander, Ella O'Flaherty and Fabienne Weston all 4 are U15 and for several this is their first season in the U15’s.

In the club XC point Championships after the 1st round of races Spike and Hattie lead the U13’s, Ruairi and Rose the U15’s and in the U17’s Lemi and Mimi.  The best 5 results from 9 races will count (Met League, Middlesex, Southern and National Championships plus NWLL at Hampstead Heath Extension).  The U11 is scored on NWLL races and is currently led by Benjy and Ella.

The next cross country events for the young athletes are:
20 October 2018 - Southern Cross Country Relay Championships (Entry Closed)
27 October 2018 - NWLL and North of Thames Championship, Kingsbury
10 November 2018 - Met League, Welwyn Garden City

Results

1 Adam Kirk-Smith 25:19.42
7 Tom Aldred 26:09.27
13 Seyfu Jamaal 26'48.24
45 Thomas Clark 28'26.36
51 Ewan Gault 28'40.95
62 Charles Hardy 29'07.64
72 Sion Lewis 29'24.80
77 Liam Garrett 29'30.17
81 William Griffiths 29'33.89

88 Peter Northall 29'57.11
99 David Hellard 30'19.80
124 Leigh Ferris 30'51.36
133 Daniel Johns 31'04.70
135 Henry Turner 31'09.21
137 Michael Cockings 31'11.61
145 Jonathan Shipley 31'22.89
148 Peter Bakewell 31'25.89
164 Stuart Meiklejohn 31'55.24
165 Paul Jarman 31'56.61
167 Martin Potter 31'59.92
169 Joe Pennington 32'00.64
170 Chris Holmes 32'02.83
179 Jonathan Litchfield 32'19.95
182 Peter Gould 32'21.11
184 Steve Armstrong 32'21.80
186 Asmelash Abrha 32'25.08
192 Adam Mitchell 32'33.33
208 Philip Hogg 33'09.61
216 Tony Shearer 33'25.27
219 Rob Shulman 33'28.08
220 Andrew Owen 33'28.33
225 Gavin Evans 33'38.86
226 Jonathan Hopkin 33'39.11
237 Simon Nichols 33'58.99
238 Dominic Jackson 34'00.55
239 Pete Crockford 34'03.55
240 Oliver Murray 34'04.24
276 Matt Collins 35'00.49
277 Mark Anderson 35'03.17
279 Jack Pinnick-Gray 35'10.11
292 Kris Milovsorov 35'33.21

312 Ben Racie 36'06.39
314 John Mcknight 36'11.39
326 Thomas Davis 36'37.55
327 Rajiv Ratan 36'38.05
342 Andrew Wooding 37'10.33
354 Jonathan Parker 37'25.77
375 James Dark 38'01.30
377 Laurence Arnold 38'05.17
386 Carl Heap 38'31.05
395 Russell Weston 39'06.11
397 Chris Prickett 39'11.99
402 Leo Pemberton 39'29.36
410 Shaun Kennedy 39'48.14
443 Steve Jones 42'04.02
447 Alun Nash 42'14.30
451 Tim Sander 42'52.30
452 Joel Hawes 43'12.99
459 David Walton 44'00.67
481 Ken Townson 47'29.33

Senior women

8 Rebecca Piggott 23:56.64
10 Josie Hinton 24:03.74
17 Celine Murray 24:38.99
18 Olivia Desborough 24:43.36
26 Kelly Thorneycroft 25:14.70
28 Annabel Litchfield 25:19.70
38 Sue Rust 25:56.61
48 Rosa Serafini 26:37.80
52 Emily Reichert 26:50.64
53 Louisa Pointon 26:50.89
54 Satu Hietanen 26:54.27
56 Eilidh Wagstaff 26:56.42

61 Emma Watson 27:20.67
68 Angela Howe 27:41.33
71 Beth Wells 27:53.39
95 Jennifer Wing 29:23.52
100 Jessica Vinluan 29:32.33
118 Jaqueline Wastell 30:19.58
132 Sarah Duke 31:00.89
134 Lucy Stanfield 31:03.67
138 Ruth Miller 31:16.77
147 Maura Bellio 32:04.08
159 Kimberli Butler 32:40.86
166 Ann Woulfe 32:59.77
179 Edyta Szot 33:55.99
180 Samantha Taylor 34:09.39
188 Rachel Scott Halls 35:09.14
208 Sara Dark 37:06.92
210 Lydia Lindley 37:08.17

U11 Boys

1. Benji Bediako 5’30.17
7. Noah Beckloff 5’56.99
14. Eric Beale 6’05.83

U11 Girls

3. Kiara Corkin 6’06
16. Elkie Baker 6’42

U13 Boys

4. Spike Blake 11:12
21. Greg Berrisford Sweet 12:32

U13 Girls

12. Hattie Munday 12:55

Junior Men

4. Lemi Mideksa 14:13.17
5. Jake Evans 14:14.27
27. Ruari McGonagle 15:45.80
32. Bedo Aron Draskoczy 15:55.05
34. Jack Davis-Black 15:58.61
69. Raymond Edwin 17:47.70
80. Kit Naylor 18:37.33

Junior Women

5. Rose Garrett 17:00.21 
8. Mimi Blake 17:21.55
20. 18:01.83 Nell Swinhoe
23. Mia Manttan 18:23.80
27. Matilda Heath 19:00.99
32. 19:24.77 Edie Friedlande 
40. Ella Flaherty 20:38.36
49. Fabienne Weston 22:16.08

Thanks again to Sue for the report and especially for doing the leg work on the results! COYH!