Met League #4, Trent Park: What a day!
What a day! I think that best sums up our experiences in as few words as possible. But, as you've all gotten to know in the past few months, I'm not one who tends to use as few words as possible.
The weather was somewhat cold, but without any wind and the sun shining it was a beautiful day for racing. The conditions underfoot were significantly better than Trent Park was in the plethora of races we had there last year with only a few slippery patches.
The day started off well when we had a relatively large turnout from the Young Athletes (a grand total of 13, which doesn't seem like much, but it was a lot more than the other races). We had some successes with Yanna getting a top 10 finish and leading our U17 women to a 4th place finish. It was nice to see the youngsters out there who will hopefully running for our Senior teams in the not-so-distant future (perhaps even at the next fixture....)
Our Senior women had an absolutely amazing race, beating league leaders Highgate and coming very close to both Serpentine and Woodford. We had our biggest ever turnout for the women's team in my memory (admittedly that's a short one) of 16. That fueled some great results in all categories. The Vet women should not be ignored either as they also dominated in their race, winning the fixture and propelling themselves into first in the league. Great work to both Sue and Sarah for their top 10 finishes.
One of the things I had wanted to do was to emphasize team over individual results in my writeups (I know, I've already mentioned 3 people). However, there is one particular performance which must be mentioned. From what I know, it has been a few years since Heathside could boast a top 10 finish on the men's side, but Tom managed that on Saturday with a 5th overall which has already turned heads at other clubs. Though there was a lot of talk of "where did that come from?" it probably was not that much of a surprise to anyone who was at the track this past Tuesday or anyone who has seen him (and Steve and Olivier) train. Behind Tom, we had probably our best men's performance in a very long while. I wish I could mention everyone who ran super well (on the men's and women's team, but that's pretty much the list below... congrats do go out to those who broke the top 100 for the first time). A year ago, we never had more than one man in the top 50 and we had 4 in the top 40 on Saturday. We also had 14 (almost 15) in the top 100. That means that one out of every 7th runner in the top 100 were from our club. Not only that but we kept packing them in. A grand total of 54 men finished for London Heathside, which is the most this year (and my guess is in a long time). Our team results definitely reflected the turnout we had with our A team narrowly missing beating Highgate and our B team coming 2nd in Division 2, ahead of two A teams from strong clubs (NEB and TVH). Our Vets teams as usual dominated and we had the 1st AND 4th teams in Division 1 as well as the runaway winner in Division 3.
I cannot say enough good things about Saturday and how well everyone did. Certainly we have shown that not only can we run with the elite clubs, but that we can beat some of them as well. This is definitely something to build off of. Another thing I noticed while compiling the results below was the packing we had. In both mens and womens races we had a few spots where there were 2, 3 or even 4 Heathsiders in a row. This is very encouraging. Running as a team makes everyone faster. Let's take this momentum we've gained from the weekend and ride the wave to another great performance in 4 weeks time.
One minor quibble that was passed on to me. We had a lot of things left where our bags were. I know it's difficult to remember where everything is (we did have about 100 people in that space when coaches, parents and supporters are counted. Please don't leave your belongings or any garbage (rubbish in your lingo) when you leave. Someone does have to clean it up.
If you were looking for a recap of the last race (Middlesex), please check the news archive.
Here are all the results. Please email me if something looks amiss:
Team Results
U13 Boys
9th/14 teams, in 13th/21 teams in the league standings
U13 Girls
6th/11 teams, in 8th/15 teams in the league standings
U17 Women
4th/14 teams, in 9th/18 teams in the league standings
U17 Men
7th/18 teams, in 8th/20 teams in the league standings
Senior Women
Our A team was 3rd! (and very close to 2nd and 1st!) of 10 teams in Division 1, 4th overall in the standings.
Our B team was 2nd of 10 teams in Division 2, 4th overall in the standings
Vet Women
Our A team was 1st! of 10 teams in Division 1 and has now also moved into 1st! in the overall standings.
Our B team was 1st of 7 teams in Division 2 and has solidified 1st place in the standings (and a promotion to Division 1 next year)
Senior Men
Our A team was 4th (oh so close to Highgate) of 10 teams in Division 1 and is solidly in 4th in the overall standings.
Our B team was 2nd! of 10 teams in Division 2 and is also in 4th in the overall standings.
Vet Men
Our A team was 1st of 10 teams in Division 1 and is also in 1st in the league standings (but don't get complacent, the gap isn't a sure thing)
Our B team was 4th of 10 teams in Division 1 and is 6th place in the league standings.
Our C team was 1st of 17 teams in Division 3 and has an extremely comfortable lead in the division (and should easily get promoted to Division 2 next year... yes, we'll have to wait one more year to get a C team in Division 1... )
Full league tables can be found here.
Young Athletes
U13 Boys
19th Antanas Weston 13:13
34 Finishers
U13 Girls
10th Octavia Laudler 13:38
13th Molly Harrison 14:08
26 Finishers
U17 Women
9th Yanna Raykov 16:58
17th Genevieve Weston 17:19
23rd Lauren Gee 17:46
32nd Jade O'Bruen 21:08
33rd Kathleen Jackson 21:08
36 Finishers
U17 Men
15th James Wooldridge 14:06
23rd Miron Woldemichael 14:47
32nd Daniel Szajna 15:06
33rd Max Heap 15:06
51st Iziaih Turner 18:28
53 Finishers
Women (16 finishers! 3 debuts)
7th Sue Rust 24:19
8th Sarah Swinhoe 24:26
24th Claire Morrissey 25:47
25th Katharine Daish 25:52
31st Bridget Napleton 26:12
33rd Angela Howe 26:13
34th Edie Fassnidge 26:18
35th Iva Raykov 26:21
69th Fiona Alston 29:00
75th Caroline White 29:31
77th Katherine Vinnicombe 29:40
78th Cathy Collins 29:51
81st Michaela Addinall 30:01
94th Gabi Johnson 31:16
109th Jo Hampson 33:43
117 finishers
Men (54 finishers! 8 debuts)
5th Tom Aldred 25:13
22nd Steve Brookes 26:18
32nd Olivier Le Polain 26:54
38th George Stewart 27:02
63rd Alex Galloway 27:50
70th Dan Madams 28:08
71st Simon Nash 28:10
74th Chris Hartley 28:17
77th Matt Convery 28:30
78th Michael Davidson 28:30
79th Simon Brown 28:34
83rd John Flahive 28:39
97th Gavin Mantle 29:02
98th Paul Lemmon 29:02
101st Robert Grech 29:11
105th David Hellard 29:20
107th Tom Stevenson 29:21
112th Julian Ferraro 29:27
116th James Pickett 29:36
120th Andy Owen 29:48
125th Gavin Evans 29:52
127th Andy Welshman 29:55
129th Marcus Tillotson 29:56
136th Dan McKeown 30:07
148th Norman Mitchell 30:20
160th Costi Stavrianakis 30:40
163rd Howard Gold 30:46
165th Dominic Jackson 30:47
177th Will Whitaker 31:10
178th Matt Fassnidge 31:12
182nd Tony Killilea 31:23
189th Jacob Howe 31:33
193rd Stuart Amblin 31:44
194th Paul McCrossin 31:47
195th Steve Buttling-Smith 31:52
196th Rob Shulman 31:54
198th James Hancock 32:00
203rd James Josephs 32:11
205th Phil Hogg 32:16
212th Leo Pemberton 32:32
214th Nick Desuasmarez 32:33
216th Anthony Wilkinson 32:35
219th Anthony Chaimowitz 32:40
221st Mark George 32:44
228th Carl Heap 32:54
243rd Simon Hazel 33:32
267th Zak Tankel 34:40
271st George Margesson 35:00
279th Russell Weston 35:14
305th Martin Hill 37:51
308th Ken Townson 38:47
314th Robert Gould 39:30
317th Dan Williams 39:48
335th Ralph Dawkins 47:35
335 Finishers
Updated Lambert Trophy Standings (after 8/12 races) (only top 10 shown, email me if you want the full scores and standings)
1 Sarah Swinhoe 99
2 Sue Rust 90
3 Ursula Wilson 64
4 Iva Raykov 59
5 Claire Morrissey 57
6 Ruth Miller 46
7 Jackie Wastell 41
8 Katharine Daish 36
9 Angela Howe 33
10 Caroline White 30
Updated Turner Shield Standings (after 8/12 races) (only top 10 shown, email me if you want the full scores and standings)
1 Michael Davidson 212
2 George Stewart 202
3 Norman Mitchell 147
4 Paul Lemmon 146
5 John Flahive 133
6 Steve Brookes 118
7 Tom Aldred 118
8 Martin Potter 111
9 Simon Brown 104
10 Andy Owen 101