Met League Fixture #1 Report - Claybury

The most encouraging bit of good news: 39 senior men turned up for the race!  Last year we had 37 at the most (and only 13 at this fixture).  Certainly a lot of people came through when it counted and took time off of their too short weekends (at least that's how they feel to me) to come out and spend the afternoon on a field running up and down hills.  I hope everyone has as much fun as I did.  I also cannot discount the efforts made by the senior women, 12 of whom showed up, matching our highest turnout of last year.  This is truly an amazing start and my crystal ball foretells that this is the start of something wonderful.

The loudest bit of good news: I don't know how many others noticed this, though I know I wasn't the only one (and since I also had a tiny hand in it, it was all the more obvious), but our cheering section was quite enthusiastic today.  Special mention must go out to Kabir, Yanna and Bill who were by far the loudest on the course, and I don't just mean the Heathsiders.  I could hear them hundreds of meters after I had passed them and their cheering gave me enough of a boost to catch one of the other runners (though you might think I'm joking here, I'm completely serious).  I look forward for this trend (the cheering, though I do enjoy out-kicking other runners too) to continue as well (and I plan on doing a google search and buying some different noisemakers).  We also had a conversation at the after party (more on that later) about someone from our club.  Maybe Paul can help me with the name.  I don't want to forget the others who came out to support the team either, of which there were many who could just have easily sat on the couch all day, or gone shopping, seen a film or whatever it is British people do on Saturday afternoons.  If you're getting this email thank you.  If you know someone who came to watch you/us, say thanks.  It's Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday anyway so you can pretend to be Canadian for a day if you like.  I'll let you.

The fun bit of news: The after-party was somewhat well attended.  I'd say it was about 15-20 people before I left (early Sunday run) though I stopped counting after 12.  It was good to see some people out.  Though I've filed this under good news, it definitely is an area we can improve drastically upon (yes, I know, families...).  Like some of my old teammates used to say: if you can't win the race, at least win the party.

The numbers bit of news:  This is last because I wrote everything else before I got the results.  It's hard not to have a good day when you have a lot of people turn out.  I'm not going to go on about those who missed it (not here at least), but instead I'll focus on the positives - and boy were there a lot.  First off, let me say that everyone who turned out you did amazing today just by showing up.  I'm sure some of you think you had a bad race, and that may be true, but I doubt that any of you didn't put a good effort in and honestly that is all anyone can ask of you.  So thank you for a) coming out and b) doing your best.  Every person who started this race contributed to the team effort (and many who didn't start the race helped out immensely).  A quick summary of our results (teams first):

Women's Teams:
A Team - 4th in Division 1
B Team - 6th in Division 2
Vets A Team - 4th in Division 1
Vets B Team - 7th in Division 2

Men's Teams
A Team - tied for 6th in Division 1
B Team - 4th in Division 2
Vets A Team - 1st in Division 1
Vets B Team - 8th in Division 1
Vets C Team - 1st in Division 3

Comments: All of these results are encouraging in their own way.  Both the senior men and senior women were missing some of our top runners and their return will help push up both the A and B teams. No teams are in any serious danger of relegation and several teams look like they have at least an outside shot of either doing well in the first division or in moving up.  Keep up the good work!  In the email for the next fixture I'll discuss what our short term goals could be for all teams, but for now, let's bask in the glow of a job well done.

Individuals
Young Athletes (talking about the women is one thing for the Men's Team Manager, but what the heck, at least one of them stuck around and cheered us on):
U17 Women
14th Yanna Raykov 18:13
35 finishers, Team was 10th

U17 Men
22nd Johnny Naylor 15:49
44th Joe Silva 17:35
52 Total Finishers, Team was 14th

Women
32nd Iva Raykov 24:24
33rd Clare Miller 24:25
36th Mhairi Mackenzie 24:39
38th Angela Howe 24:47
55th Ursula Wilson 25:54
65th Hannah Carmichael 26:27
67th Claire Morrissey 26:40
74th Ruth Miller 27:14
80th Charlotte Pheazey 27:24
81st Karen Hillary 27:25
108th Jayne Sales 30:21
122nd Regina Pereira 34:37
130 Total Finishers

Men
38th George Stewart 27:34
41st Tom Aldred 27:41
61st Martin Potter 28:26
69th Michael Davidson 28:43
99th Ed Samuel 29:42
101st Matt Convery 29:47
103rd John Flahive 29:52
105th Jacob Howe 29:54
110th Andy Owen 29:59
111th Adam Mitchell 30:01
113th Simon Nash 30:03
114th Simon Brown 30:04
120th Tom Ashby 30:14
123rd Ken Heney 30:17
125th Dan Findlay-Robinson 30:20
130th Paul Lemmon 30:25
133rd Norman Mitchell 30:33
135th Anthony Hall 30:38
144th Philip Bentley 30:54
172nd Nick Taylor 31:52
184th Dominic Jackson 32:11
193rd Will Whitaker 32:30
195th Rob Shulman 32:35
205th Kosti Stavrianakis 32:57
207th David Browne 32:59
210th Alex Sweet 33:07
212th Stuart Amblin 33:09
221st Carl Heap 33:30
222nd Robin Tremaine 33:31
261st Jo Green 35:00
281st Joe Newman 36:08
288th Dave Walton 36:24
298th Russel Weston 37:09
315th Ian Whisson 38:26
332nd Chris Douglas 40:46
334th Ken Townson 40:57
339th Robert Gould 41:42
350th Adrian Essex 44:22
355 Total Finishers

Comments: Wow! Not only did we have a lot of runners but we had a flurry of finishers in a very key part of the race.  Between places 99-144 (46 spots) we had 15 finishers.  That's almost 1 out of every 3 runners.  That is definitely the Heathside way.  I obviously didn't see much of that pack but I hope that you were working together.  Nothing is more demoralizing to other team members (especially ones near us in the standings) to see a huge pack of dark blue singlets go flying past.  Wonderful jobs by everyone.  Don't feel bad if your race wasn't the best, we know you put a huge effort forward and if you're disappointed there's nowhere to go but up!

The next Met League fixture is November 12th at Stevenage.  This is potentially a difficult journey for some so I think I need to do a straw poll or something (my email inbox is going to regret this).  Who is able to drive to this event?  If so, can you drive others?  If so, how many and where would you meet them?  Do you not have a way to get there (other than public transport)?  Where do you live?  If you can email me (michaelldavidson@gmail.com - remember the extra "l" for my middle initial) your answers to these that would be great.  If I get a lot of people who can't get there (i.e. transport is the reason for them not being able to go), I'll look into getting some sort of mass transit for a group of our runners.  If you could email in groups that might be best since collating info from 60+ people (potentially, I hope) might be difficult.  And yes, I will help organize transport for the women as well, since that will be much easier to arrange.

There will be another cross country fixture between now and then, but a) it's not one that the club needs a huge turnout for (but anyone is welcome, I think) and b) I'll send more info about that about a week and a bit in advance of it.  It's the North London Champs on October 29th.

Anyway, thanks once again to everyone who came to run or to cheer.  I look forward to seeing you all again in 5 weeks time (actually a bit less now).