Met League 5: Men win twice; women runners-up again

The last day of the London City Runner Metropolitan CC League proved a day of mixed fortune for our senior teams on Saturday. The races at Perivale resulted in our women's slender league lead being overturned at the death by the reigning champions, Highgate, but our men regained the Division One title while the B team triumphed in Division Two. We had two individual third-placers, in Lauren Stewart and Bertie Powell.

Results

The Horsenden Hill venue is known for its mud, and mud there was aplenty but, in comparison to the recent South of England championships, there was also a reasonable amount of firm ground available to the sharp-eyed.

When Linda Jackson was forced out of the women's team for work reasons on Saturday morning, the writing was already on the wall, and when Highgate appeared with all their star athletes, our hopes of a first-ever title flew pretty much out the window. When Highgate closed 5 in 9, it became apparent that even Jackson's presence would not have saved the day

With the fields in both the men's and women's races a little weaker than usual possibly because of the National Championships next weekend, our women mostly achieved their best league positions of the winter. Lauren Stewart is continuing to progress, and scored an excellent third place, albeit almost a minute behind Highgate's Svenja Abel, the winner. Diana Kennedy and Kat Gundersen were also delighted with their performances and positions, finishing 11th and 13th respectively. The fact that Kennedy put 22 seconds between herself and Gundersen this time justified the disappointment she had felt in not making the medal-winning team last month in the Southern Championships.

Bernie Pritchett cancelled a projected indoor race to support the cause but was not rewarded with her best result of the winter as she finished 20th. Rachel Lund ran close to par, finishing just 14 seconds behind Pritchett for 25th, and she has had a very good and promising first season. With Jackson out, it was left to team manager Alex Wardle and Julia Shannahan to fight for the last of the six scoring places. After tracking Shannahan throughout the race, Wardle attacked on the final bend and, after a no-holds barred sprint, took the honours though both women were given the same time. They were 75th and 76th of 105 finishers.

With Highgate winning decisively, by 103 points, manager Wardle was left disappointed although, if the truth be told, Highgate have a better-quality squad of London-based runners and it is somewhat surprising that they have not achieved more in the major championships races. "I'm gutted to lose out again," said Wardle, "But we can take consolation in our silver medals from the Southern, which has to rank higher than a Met League title, despite our sentimental attachment to the Met."

Results: 1, Highgate 592; 2, Serpentine 492; 3, WGEL 489

Final league positions: 1, Highgate 3309; 2, WGEL 3230; 3, Serpentine 3018

In contrast to the women's situation, men's manager Terry McCarthy found himself being congratulated by the managers of the team's rivals in both Division One and Division Two before the race had even begun. In fact, the main Division One title looked completely certain as, even with a big league lead, we placed a phalanx of quality men on the start line. The B team's status as Division Two leaders was far less secure.

The race was notable for another attempt at victory by Bertie Powell, similar to one he had made at Wormwood Scrubs last year. But others had the same idea and the lead chopped and changed between Powell, Shaftesbury's Trapmore and Met Police's 2.23 marathon man Peter Tucker. That was until Newham's Olly Laws, who has a 29.12 10000m PB to his credit, decided enough was enough and hit the front to win the race by 2 seconds from Trapmore. Powell fought with typical tenacity to fend off challenges from Highgate's Dodwell and Tom Bedford, son of the great David Bedford, and in doing so achieved his best-ever Met League position of 3rd in this, his 30th consecutive Met League outing. A remarkable record from a most durable, determined and still developing young athlete.

In 7th place, but just 7 seconds away from 4th, was Kevin Murphy in his best race of the winter so far, despite an ongoing tight hamstring which is restricting his training. Forced to accept 8th was Dave Wardle who said he had run "like a granny" but has to keep persisting and racing in order to rediscover his best form.

It was something of a red letter day for the men's team as we had two men making their winter debuts for us who have National Cross Country team medals in their cabinets – Daniel Agustus and Martyn Cryer. Agustus, from Filey in Yorkshire and an ex-Sale Harriers athlete, has relocated to South London to work after taking time away from serious training to complete a PhD. His pedigree includes a 5th in the Northern and 31st in the 2006 National. At Perivale it was a case of seeing how far his recent training had taken him, so he ran comfortably rather than eyeballs out, and notched a tidy 14th place on the sort of muddy surface he runs poorly on.

Blackpool-born ex-Salford Harriers athlete Cryer got caught in traffic and missed the start of the race by 1-2 minutes, but worked his way through the 260 finishers to place 40th. He deemed it a useful workout that would put him in a better position to run aggressively in the big race next Saturday. In between our debutants we had three more good men. Tim Prendergast, with just 5% vision, ran the course beforehand to assess tricky points including low branches, a U-turn and potential bottlenecks. Then he found a young Hillingdon athlete of similar standard and latched onto him as a guide for much of the race, even helping the lad to his feet when he fell. No doubt the Hillingdon boy was surprised, at race end, to learn that he'd been unknowingly acting as a guide to the New Zealand Paralympic captain. Prendergast was 18th.

Jordan Donnelly had his best run of the winter so far in finishing 26th, but we must reluctantly release him to his first-claim club, Wirral AC, for the National. And Jon Powell made a day-trip from Manchester to support the cause and sharpen a little more for next Saturday. Jon has made decent progress since finishing 20th in the Chingford League at the turn of the year, and was 31st here, almost 3 minutes down on younger brother Bertie.

Richard Holland had a great run for 47th, finishing almost 90 seconds ahead of the second M50. Alex Chklar confounded a bizarre combination of clothing to run very well for 61st and M45 Ray Dzikowski also produced a good performance in 69th. That left an under par M55 Dave Cox to close the scoring team in 97th place.

When the points were totted up, our men had executed a St Valentine's Day Massacre, routing perennial league rivals Shaftesbury by 750 points and Serpentine by 350. In fact, the Humbugs could only manage 8th on the day and the Serpies leap-frogged them to claim the runners-up spot in the league while we stood head-and-shoulders above the rest with a mighty 834 point margin.

Results: 1, WGEL 1612; 2, Met Police 1370; 3, Hillingdon 1346; 4, Serpentine 1279………….. 8, Shaftesbury 870

Final league positions: 1, WGEL 8686; 2, Serpentine 7852; 3, Shaftesbury 7474

With our 12th man across the line in 97th place, our B team could begin scoring. We started the day with a narrow lead in Division 2 over Newham and a couple of hundred clear of Herts Phoenix. Things looked good as a flood of hooped vests flowed through in the low 100s. Despite inconsistent to zero training, ever-present M45 Iain Cumming (100) achieved a pleasing best finish of the winter. In his 2nd comeback race back after long-term injury, Paul Manson (105) ran conservatively but finished strongly to reel in a string of runners, including the improving Matt Molloy (106, up from 118 last time). M45 John Wallis (114) has had more comebacks than Sinatra, but manager McCarthy (141) was still amazed to learn that Wallis was 90" and 27 places ahead of him after a few weeks' training. In his second race for the club, Andrew Clare (117) showed us a better version of himself than in his culture-shock debut three weeks ago at Uxbridge, but is still being impeded by a foot injury. And fellow new boy Steve Dawkins enjoyed a vast improvement over his first race at the Stevenage Met League, up from 177 to 126, demonstrating what youth is capable of and promising a fair amount for the future.

With Andy Coleman, Trevor Powell and Alan Bird all dropping out as known injuries failed to respond with the anticipated eagerness to 5.5 miles of mud and water, our runners thinned out slightly. Alistair Holford notched his highest finish of the season, 168, as did Andy Smith (190) who has no problem with muddy ground and exploited the fact to get the better of rival Michael Murphy (206). We needed two more men to complete the full B team (not strictly necessary, just advantageous) and we had them in Alex Davies (255) and Stuart Phillips (259), both of whom earned us a few points which might have proved crucial.

In the event, the fact that second-placed Newham only fielded four athletes ruled them out of the equation and lost them their promotion place as Herts Phoenix finished 5 men in the top 100 to win the Division 2 race on the day by 157 points. This pulled them up to just 37 points behind our B team, not enough to prevent top clubman Bertie Powell hoisting aloft the Division 2 trophy in the local sports hall.

"The guys have been brilliant this year," commented manager McCarthy. "We've won 3 fixtures outright and closed 24+ men at all the away venues, which involve more travel for us than most. We've had a lot of new lads debut for us this season, and they get an excellent first impression of the club. The races are a good standard and worthwhile even for top guys like Agustus and Cryer, while it is a good learning experience for new boys like Prendergast, Martin McLean, Andrew Clare, Ian Thompson and Dawkins. Shaftesbury forgot to return the Div 1 trophy yesterday – I hope they bring it to the National next Saturday because we want to take it to the pub!"

Results: 1, Herts Phoenix 827; 2, WGEL "B" 690; ….. 5, Newham Beagles 340.

Final league positions: 1, WGEL "B" 4714; 2, Herts Phoenix 4677; 3, Newham Beagles 4267

In the Bramley 20 mile road race in Hampshire, and after a 94-mile training week, Ewen Malloch was very pleased to finish second in 1 hour 48.20 on his 20-mile race debut. Everything went to plan as he ran negative splits of 55.00 and 53.20 on the 2-lap course. Ewen plans to race his first competitive marathon, the London, in April.