Sunday league and Perivale
This week Gavin has introduced a new triple star rating for those hardy souls who braved Met League at the Scrubs, Earl Haig afterwards and Sunday League on the, er, Sunday. Well done Kim and Dan. Well done also those who doubled up with Perivale.
Sunday League XC Race #3, Willian, 6/12/15 (approx. 5 miles)
This was always going to be a tall order. A Sunday League race the day after the Met League (and drinks at the Earl Haig), on the same day as the popular Perivale 5, in some out-of-the-way place hardly anyone had heard of, running round the edges of rolling fields (in windy conditions, it turned out) near junction 9 of the A1. I certainly knew where I was going to be, having got stick for running Perivale last year…
Fortunately I was not alone, and looking around at the crowded start it became evident that we might just have enough people to field complete A teams, though only by the skin of our teeth. Without anyone to qualify for a B team place, it was time to bid farewell to our B teams at this stage… until next season. And then we were off, or some of us were, with the narrow start hampering progress and making a few of us wish we’d started much further forward.
The course was not as taxing as others we have faced this season, with a mix of surfaces to run on (trail, grass, some road and footpath) and a nice long downhill section which kept the momentum going, which made up for the wind blowing in the wrong direction on the uphill, particularly on lap two. Of the 402 runners who took part, Dan McKeown led Heathside home in 57th overall (56th man), while Rachel Newstead wasn’t far behind in 82nd, and an impressive 3rd in the women’s race.
Both Dan and Rachel ‘did the XC double’ along with Kim and Jonathan, who get stars next to their names in the results, plus I added an extra star for those who ‘did the treble’, having run the Met League, celebrated at the Earl Haig, and yet still managed to catch the train to Willian bright and early the next morning. A huge thank you to everyone else who took part – every single one of you did your bit, as the results bear out:
The women’s A team missed out on 10th place by a whisker, while the men had to settle for 13th this time around. On the flip-side, we would have been heavily penalised for any A team no-shows, so our positions could have been a lot worse.
This is reflected in our overall league positions after three fixtures: the men’s and women’s A teams are both in 8th place out of 20 (the men three places higher than last year; the women one place lower).
Men’s vets finished 9th and remain 7th overall, while women’s vets finished 14th and are 8th overall.
The next Sunday League fixture will be on 17th January at Cassiobury Park, Watford, providing a rare opportunity to run on woodland trails this season – I hope to see you there in the New Year!
Results
Women (140 finishers)
3 **Rachel Newstead** 33:21
38 Jessica Vinluan 39:14
98 ***Kim Butler*** 45:04
108 Laura Boothman 47:43
110 Louise Cripps 47:52
Men (262 finishers)
56 ***Dan McKeown*** 32:00
63 **Jonathan Litchfield** 32:39
75 Phil Duggan 33:11
141 Gavin Parish 36:34
147 Marco Maserati 37:00
163 Jeff Vetere 37:37
182 Alun Nash 38:45
200 Paul Silverman 40:09
Perivale 5 – Sunday 6th December 2015
15 Heathsiders took part in this last race of the Club Champs – a number of them having also bravely run in the Met league xc the day before at Wormwood Scrubs. This race is five flat fast miles – two laps around the scenic streets of Perivale! It’s a sociable event, with Santa pacers, and bright green t-shirts for all finishers and cakes and tea for all afterwards. Julian led the Heathside runners home, coming in 2nd M50, and Leigh was our first woman and 6th woman overall.
20th 29:57 Julian Ferraro (2nd M50)
41 32:45 Leigh James (6th woman)
47th 33:20 Mark George
73rd 34:50 Maryam Khosravi
78th 35:13 Jesper Lycke
88th 35:51 Andrew Hudson
91st 35:59 Robert Bowler
108th 36:57 Sandra Buckton
127th 38:13 Caroline White (3rd V55)
137th 38:54 Tammela Platt
145th 39:20 Gabrielle Johnson
160th 40:19 Sue Eedle (4th V55)
185th 41:59 Barbara Tomaszczyk
197th 43:09 Rebecca Taylor
216th 44:21 Stephen Woolf
Trailscape East Trail
Simon Hazel reports that he skipped xc at the Scrubs in favour of the Trailscape East Trail half marathon at Cuxton in Kent. Finished 14th/110 in 2 hrs 3 mins 53secs for the 13.6 hilly and muddy miles. A great race series, thoroughly recommended.
Parkruns
http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=2017&eventdate=2015-12-05
Well done to Andy Barnes and Rebecca Bunting for their first places.