London Heathside

[Paul Lemmon]

As the weather has finally become bearable so the Cross Country season drew to a close with the Inter Counties Champs and the Southern Vets Champs, while we also had several people putting in good performances on the roads. I’m going to start this week with the Mini Marathon trials however as I didn’t have the results in time for last week’s mail. The kids were running for their boroughs rather than their clubs, but it was still good to see several Heathsiders at the front of their races with top 6 finishes for Johnny, Harriet, Renat, Leon, Conor, Jamie, Miron and Lottie, though closest of all to victory was Genevieve who was just pipped on the line.

Moving on to this weekend’s events Sue had a brilliant run for Middlesex at the Inter Counties. 85th may not sound all that amazing, but even more than the National the Inter Counties is the race at which most of the top runners in the country show up, so anything in the top 100 is a terrific achievement. Also on Saturday both Dominic and Rick took advantage of a flat course and decent conditions to set Half Marathon PBs. At the same venue the following day Tony had less favourable, very windy, conditions in which to run 10k, but finished in an excellent 2nd place.

Also on Sunday the Vets Champs took place at Trent Park, and despite a few non-running injuries keeping people away (1 fell off their bike while another fell off their horse) we had a good turnout, particularly from the men. In the men 50-69 race we had 5 runners with Pete leading the way home, though Hassan was never a huge way behind him and also finished in the top half of the field. As well as the Southern Champs the race also included the Middlesex Champs and while our team didn’t finish in the medals in the former I would think they may well have done so in the latter, though I haven’t seen results for that yet. Unfortunately we only had 2 runners in the women’s race so no team, but both Jackie and Fiona ran well and Jackie only narrowly missed out on a Middlesex V45 individual medal. Star of the day for Heathside however was Martin, who finished 7th in the men 40-49 event and picked up the Middlesex silver medal. He also led our team home to county silvers, annoyingly just 1 point behind Highgate, but John and I were still a bit too far from our best for us to repeat our Southern medals from the last couple of years. As the official results are not out yet, unsurprisingly given the total incompetence of the SEAA, those that appear below are what I scribbled down on the day. The main position is where they actually finished in the race, while in brackets I have tried to list their positions within their age group and/or within Middlesex. I hope it makes sense!

London Mini-marathon trials, Finsbury Park, 7/3/10:
Under 13 Boys (2k approx):
3rd Johnny Naylor 7m 43s
17th Cameron Mackinney 8m 43s
25th Jack Forey 10m 00s
Under 13 Girls (2k approx):
2nd Genevieve Weston 8m 23s
5th Harriet Mackinney 8m 57s
8th Ottavia Laidler 8m 59s
9th Jessica Godden 9m 04s
14th Ellen Bolger 9m 28s
20th Annis Easton 9m 59s
Under 15 Boys (3k approx):
2nd Renat Hammet-Millay 11m 59s
3rd Leon Cannon-Wilson 12m 06s
6th Conor O’Shea 12m 30s
Under 18 Boys (3k approx):
4th Jamie Armstrong 11m 15s
6th Miron Woldemichael 11m 24s
7th Jordan Tompkins 11m 36s
14th Alex Economou 12m 32s
17th Oualid Manassib 12m 58s
23rd Jeremy Arias 14m 12s
Under 18 Girls (3k approx):
6th Lottie Sorbie 14m 32s

Inter Counties Cross Country Championship, Cofton Park (Birmingham), 13/3/10:
Senior Women (8k approx):
85th Sue Rust 31m 37s

Sparks Half Marathon, Dorney Lake (Eton), 13/3/10:
16th Dominic Jackson 83m 43s (PB, 7th V40)
57th Rick Hewett 91m 42s (PB)
292nd Kerry Hastings 2h 08m 56s

Brighton 5k Parkrun, Brighton, 13/3/10:
20th Mark Derry 19m 41s

Sparks 10k Road Race, Dorney Lake (Eton), 14/3/10:
2nd Tony Killilea 38m 27s

Banbury 15 Mile Road Race, Banbury (Oxfordshire), 14/3/10:
49th Graham Bell 1h 42m 23s

South of England/Middlesex Veterans Cross Country Championships, Trent Park, 14/3/10:

Men 50-69 (10k approx):
45th Pete Crockford 42m 23s (40th 50-59, 9th Middlesex)
59th Hassan Nahal 43m 30s (49th 50-59, 15th Middlesex)
74th Carl Heap 45m 26s (61st 50-59, 20th Middlesex)
76th Jerry Odlin 45m 46s (63rd 50-59, 21st Middlesex)
94th Nik Skipper 48m 46s (72nd 50-59, 24th Middlesex)

141 finishers in all

Women 35+ (6k approx):
27th Jackie Wastell 27m 24s (10th 45-54, 5th Middlesex)
60th Fiona Holland 30m 57s (31st 45-54, 7th Middlesex)

115 finishers in all

Men 40-49 (10k approx):
7th Martin Potter 35m 29s (6th 40-44, 2nd Middlesex)
28th John Flahive 37m 55s (8th Middlesex)
35th Paul Lemmon 38m 56s (11th Middlesex)
?th Ken Townson ? ?

Approx 120 finishers in all

Team Results (Southern – 3 to score):

1st Thames Hare & Hounds 23
2nd Southampton 39
3rd Crawley 56
4th Highgate 63
5th London Heathside 70

Middlesex (3 to score):

1st Highgate 20
2nd London Heathside 21

[Paul Lemmon]

Firstly 1 additional result, with a good Half Marathon for Nick:

Lydd Half Marathon, Lydd (Kent), 14/3/10:
7th Nick Jellema 80m 21s

The Southern Vets results have now appeared, but as they are wrong they aren't much use. Ken has been left out of the results although we saw him finish, while the M50 team has also been ignored in both the Southern and the Middlesex results despite there being 5 of them with only 3 required. It does look as if they would narrowly have missed out on Middlesex medals anyway however.