Women break clear of the pack at Scrubs; Perivale 5; Round-Up

Met League #3, Wormwood Scrubs, Saturday 3rd December

Another year, more obligatory jail-based gags as Heathside’s ladies took no prisoners at the 3rd Met League meet of the season, leaving Highgate with no defence and sentencing them to second place as we finished a few spike lengths ahead of our north London rivals with another closely fought win. With just 2 more races to come next year, a couple more big turnouts from the whole women's team could see the area's premier cross country title get early release from Highgate's clutches and find its way back into our trophy cabinet come February.

However, more on those speedsters later as there were plenty of other highlights on show at the Scrubs: Ruairi McGonagle strode home first in the Under 13 Boys race, while Rose Garrett was a very well placed 7th in the Under 13 Girls event, and with Matilda Heath not far behind, the U-13 girls came 4th overall and sit 5th in the table after 3 events. Meanwhile Rose’s older brother Liam came 8th in the Junior Boys race, just a short stretch behind Jem O’Flaherty who finished 6th. Ably supported by Jake Evans and Luke Gray, the boys came 6th on the day which was a significant improvement on the previous two meets.

But back to the seniors now and once again it was the ladies showing everyone else just how it’s done as they pulled clear at the top of Division One thanks to incredibly strong team running: that all 6 A Team runners finished in the top 26 places shows the strength in depth the women can call upon at the moment. First home in 7th place was Ella Waldman (no doubt spurred on by the Newham & Essex runner called Rottweiler snapping at her heels right behind), while Kelly Thorneycroft (11th), Dorcas Wright (17th) and captain Rebecca Piggott (18th) backed up superbly and Ula Cartwright-Finch busted a couple of Fantasy Met League predictions by bursting into the A Team with a great run, finishing just ahead of Sarah Swinhoe. Meanwhile the B Team, lead home by Rosa Serafini, edged clearer of rivals Victoria Park and Serpentine B in their bid to stay in Division One and the C Team finished 3rd overall in Division 2, leaving them still with an outside chance of being in the promotion shake up at the end of the season.

Over to the men’s event and Tom Aldred led us home, finishing 7th but a mere 7 seconds behind 3rd. Next up for the A Team was Olivier Le Polain (62nd), while Rich Macauley (75th) just pipped Andy Barnes (77th) and Kimon Doulis and *those* shorts (82nd). Elsewhere there looked like a dramatic sprint finish for Sion Lewis, Dan Madams and Chris Shipley who were separated by just 2 seconds. Rumours that Dan McKeown was last seen trying to break IN to the prison after finishing behind Dan and Chris were being confirmed as we went to press. As for the overall standings, the A Team cemented their 4th place spot in Division One, while the B Team look to be finding the step up from Division Two a stretch too far and like most of the Christmas gifts picked up at nearby Westfield this weekend, a return in the new year looks sadly inevitable. The C Team meanwhile put some distance between themselves and Woodford Green & Essex and can be confident of another season in Division Two in 2017/18. As always, thanks to captains Jake Spencer and Rebecca and everyone else who came along to help organise or to support another bumper Heathside turnout. See you all at Trent Park in 2017.

Perivale 5 and Others

A strong turnout of at least 18 Heathsiders (some familiar names in the results appear not to have ticked the right box when entering so the final total may keep rising!) made their way to deepest West London on Sunday for the Perivale 5 miler at the last race in the Rob Jackson Race Series. Impressively, a good chunk of those running can claim a Dirty Double of sorts after also running Met League the day before. First home was Francois Barou (sadly yet to be confirmed if those stunning red running pants made another appearance) in 21st, just a few seconds ahead of fellow Met Leaguers Jonathan Litchfield and Allan Whatmough. Just a couple of minutes behind Leigh James finished as 4th lady on the day and Caroline White was 1st VW55. Full results below, which now include Tammela Platt, who the organisers rather rudely missed off the results initially!

Elsewhere on Sunday Joe McKeown made the lengthy trip north to run the mystifyingly named 3-1-5 Half Marathon in Lancaster, described as an ‘out and back along the River Lune’. Apparently benefitting from great weather, as opposed to the 2015 race which was affected by flooding, Joe stormed (floods, eh? Sorry…) to a big PB as he clocked 1.23:52 and finished a hugely impressive 13th.

Opting for a run somewhere with slightly more picturesque scenery than Wormwood Scrubs, TV’s David Hellard went further afield and only went and won the Bagan Marathon, Myanmar the previous weekend. In a time of 3.00:56, a full 10 minutes ahead of his nearest rival, he got to enjoy ‘sun, sand and one of the most beautiful marathons in the world, taking in over 2000 temples (or stupas) en route’. And in other Hellard new this week, it was confirmed that he came third in the UK Obstacle Race League U-40s category, which sees your top three results in some of the country’s biggest obstacle races count towards the end total. Wins at Man v Mountain and Man v Lakes earlier in the year sealed the podium place. Congrats!

Finally, Ed Samuel appears to be too modest to report that he won the most recent Gravesend Floodlit 10k Series event last Thursday, so I’ll make sure it’s noted here. His SB of 37:08 was almost a minute quicker than his nearest challenger.

Parkruns

No Heathside first places this week, but full results here: http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=2017&eventdate=2016-12-03

Weekly Results:

Met League #3, Wormwood Scrubs, Saturday 3rd December

U-11 Boys and Girls

18th 6:16 Elliott Cerditt
26th 6:26 Hattie Munday
74th 7:58 Adam Stern

U-13 Boys

1st 11:51 Ruairi McGonagle
24th 13:03 Oliver O’Connor
38th 13:48 Lucas Maher
40th 13:53 Arthur Reed
47th 15:32 Avery Dietrick

U-13 Girls

7th 13:16 Rose Garrett
11th 13:54 Matilda Heath
34th 17:05 Fabienne Weston

Junior Men

6th 13:44 Jem O’Flaherty
8th 13:55 Liam Garrett
36th 15:10 Jake Evans
40th 15:13 Luke Gray
47th 15:24 Antanas Weston

Junior Women

26th 17:30 Meg Naylor
34th 17:57 Lily McKay
48th 19:03 Phoebe Crockford

Senior Women

7th 22:52 Ella Waldman
13th 23:33 Kelly Thorneycroft
17th 23:53 Dorcas Wright
18th 23:56 Rebecca Wright
24th 24:34 Ula Cartwright-Finch
26th 24:42 Sarah Swinhoe
37th 25:22 Rosa Serafini
49th 25:50 Colette Monahan
54th 26:08 Josie Hinton
64th 26:37 Katie Curd
65th 26:39 Emma Ford
73rd 27:03 Satu Hietanen
75th 27:06 Angela Howe
86th 27:30 Louise Le Ray
91st 27:42 Jennifer Wing
93rd 27:47 Emilia Vynnycky
95th 27:50 Louisa Pointon
102nd 28:11 Jackie Wastell
107th 28:31 Catherine Doherty
108th 28:31 Hannah Jordan
123rd 29:12 Ruth Miller
124th 29:16 Hannah Stanforth
127th 29:30 Edyta Szot
139th 30:21 Kim Butler
140th 30:23 Noelle O’Regan
155th 32:03 Rachel Weston
182nd 36:16 Laura Boothman

Senior Men

6th 26:07 Tom Aldred
62nd 28:34 Olivier Le Polain
75th 28:52 Richard Macaulay
77th 28:54 Andy Barnes
82nd 29:00 Kimon Doulis
89th 29:13 Simon Dunderdale
94th 29:16 Martin Potter
105th 29:41 Sion Lewis
106th 29:43 Dan Madams
107th 29:43 Chris Shipley
111th 29:49 Peter Northall
116th 29:57 Michael Heaney
122nd 30:06 Tom Fancett
128th 30:25 Dan McKeown
131st 30:29 Mario Cadete
138th 30:33 Chris Hartley
142nd 30:42 John Driscoll
145th 30:46 Daniel Johns
146th 30:47 Adam Mitchell
161st 30:58 Paul Mercer
164th 31:06 Luke Wynn
167th 31:12 David Fallon
169th 31:13 Joe Garrood
170th 31:14 Dave Browne
173rd 31:15 Steve Armstrong
174th 31:15 Marco Luna
176th 31:16 John Flahive
179th 31:21 Matthew Cockerill
190th 31:36 Daniel Jackson
191st 31:37 Alan Whatmough
192nd 31:38 Lee Connor
193rd 31:43 Jonathan Litchfield
196th 31:49 Andy Welshman
201st 31:57 Gareth Marshall
203rd 32:03 Jake Spencer
209th 32:20 Francois Barou
219th 32:35 Gavin Evans
220th 32:37 Phil Hogg
221st 32:41 Mark Bailey
223rd 32:44 Matt Fassnidge
224th 32:45 Jacob Howe
230th 32:55 Edward Adams
232nd 32:57 Normal Mitchell
242nd 33:08 Alan Smith
250th 33:22 Pete Bakewell
256th 33:28 Pete Crockford
259th 33:39 Doug Rendle
279th 33:59 Tony Kililie
288th 34:16 Jonathan Hopkin
292nd 34:23 James McBride
311th 34:53 Costi Stavrianakis
315th 34:57 Andrew Johnston
323rd 35:22 Roger Wagland
328th 35:38 Adam Coffman
349th 36:17 Nick De Sausmarez
358th 37:03 Shaan Haque
380th 38:20 Charles Redfern
385th 38:35 Russell Weston
402nd 39:43 Ken Townson
408th 40:21 Tim Sander
424th 42:16 Neil Davies
427th 42:32 Dave Walton
431st 43:43 Adrian Essex

Perivale 5, Sunday 4th December 2016 

21st 30:35 Francois Barou
26th 30:49 Jonathan Litchfield
27th 30:54 Allan Whatmough
36th 31:44 Isobel Rae
47th 42:46 Leigh James
51st 33:00 Luka Melon
61st 34:42 Liam Hazelton
62nd 34:48 Alice Hosking
94th 36:00 Satu Heitanen
101st 36:17 Jessica Vinluan
112th 37:10 Nilesh Goswami
114th 37:13 Jo Irwin
116th 37:19 Caroline White (1st VW55)
143rd 38:37 Tammela Platt
147th 38:48 Gabi Johnson 162nd 39:18 Hannah Jordan 165th 39:27 Shaan Haque 167th 39:29 Kim Butler 172nd 39:47 Sue Eedle 231st 45:07 Steve Woolf 

3-1-5 Half Marathon, Lancaster, Sunday 4th December 

13th 1.23:52 Joe McKeown

Gravesend Floodlit Series 10k, Thursday 1st December

1st Ed Samuel 37:08

Bagan Marathon, Myanmar, Sunday 27th November

1st 3.00:56 David Hellard