South of England 6/4 Stage Road Relays
Two outstanding runs, from Dave Cox and Richard Holland, helped earn our over-50s team silver medals in their 4-stage event which preceded the senior race and used the same course.
Women
Most of the battle, with a relay team, is getting the athletes to the Start line - thereafter there are usually few major surprises. Though our women's team boasted none of the athletes who have worn GB vests in recent years, it nonetheless had a sound look to it, with three UK Women's League representatives. And thus it proved, with a good performance that made the top 10 teams but lacked the spark to push towards medal positions.
On leg 1, Kat Gundersen is an athlete who has enjoyed very good improvement over the last 12 months, and her run reflected this. In last year's race, in which the team finished 6th, she ran 14.49 for the 3.8K loop. This year it was a nippy 14.12 as she came in 16th of the 57 teams that began the race. Rebecca Oatham, one of 6 Woodford athletes to begin their studies last week at St Mary's, the centre of athletic excellence in Twickenham, did a very sound job on her senior relay debut for the club, running 15.17, losing 3 places, but keeping the team very much in touch with the top 10.
On stage 3, top vet Linda Jackson ran 6 seconds faster than she did here 2 years ago, clocking 14.10 and moving through to 11th through a blend of her performance and incomplete teams falling by the wayside. And Diana Kennedy continued the good work in bringing the team through to 8th in running a time very close to those of Gundersen and Jackson, 14.15.
Andrea Possee led the B team off and handed over in 38th place after running 15.56. Team Manager Alex Wardle was forced to jump in at short notice when 2 of the women had traffic problems, and ran 16.44 with no warm-up, losing 3 places. Sophie Seingier was the brave soul ensuring we had a complete team, and she in fact maintained our position of 41st in running 18.03. And Rachel Lund clocked a decent 15.34 off relatively little training to bring the team through to 36th, compared with 29th in 2008.
Favourites Aldershot won the race, and it was good to see Essex clubs Havering and Colchester Harriers in attendance and finishing 5th and 7th respectively.
Men
Our hopes of improving on last year's best-ever 6th place suffered a blow on Friday when top man Dave Wardle withdrew from the lineup. Happily, there was a positive reason. Having broken his own club half-marathon best last weekend, he was selected to represent England next weekend in another half-marathon, this time in Warrington against Scotland. The athlete rightly opted to ensure full recovery from the Great North Run in order to optimise his chances of performing well in the England vest. Team Manager Terry McCarthy said, "I'd be delighted if I had my top 6 men unavailable due to England duty!"
For the men, each stage is 6K comprising two equal laps. Leg 1 was taken by Matt Barnes-Smith, who ran most of the first lap in the lead group of 3 with Ash Harrell (Norwich) and Phil Berntsen (Winchester). More experienced heads held back and pushed through on lap 2, with Berntsen finishing 24th, Harrell 19th and our own Barnes-Smith hanging on best for 10th, albeit with uneven splits of 8.54 and 9.41 for a time of 18.35.
For Craig Berg, it was possibly the day he "came of age". Switched to the A team late in the week after Bertie Powell failed to recover from a chest infection, Berg essentially ran the same time - 19.02 - as Matt Shone and Daniel Agustus, both A team shoe-ins. Whereas Agustus ran 31.45 for 10K a fortnight ago, Berg had clocked a PB of 32.59 - so this relay leg must make him sense a breakthrough if he can continue to do the right things in training. His run gained us 1 place. His splits were 9.13 and 9.49, so there is room for improvement in his race strategy.
Alex Cornwell, who only turned 18 last week, was the man with the unenviable task of replacing Wardle. Cornwell, who won the English Schools 1500m this summer, knows that his task this winter is to develop more strength. He went through the first lap in 9.30 and followed it up with 10.15 for 19.45. Although he maintained 9th place for the team, he and his coach Richard Thurston will be working hard on the strength issue in the months to come.
Daniel Agustus looked very smooth on stage 4, at a time when the sunny day was really getting quite hot. He passed 3 men but was himself passed by GB international Mike Skinner of Blackheath as he recorded 19.01 to leave us in 7th. At this point we were wondering what the teams ahead of us had left, and whether we could break into the top 5. In his first race since April, Matt Shone ran a fantastically well-judged race, with splits of 9.35 and 9.27 for 19.02. Having run 18.15 here last year on leg 1, he acknowledged that he had no zip in his legs, but he left us in 6th place after overtaking James Poole of Blackheath.
Unfortunately Hywel Care was on a hiding to nothing as he took over in front of Blackheath's Scott Overall, 6th on the UK 5000m rankings this summer. He wasn't to know that Overall had run a 66-minute half-marathon the same morning, but it did not stop Overall blasting around in 18.14. Care himself was understandably disappointed with his time of 19.38 - after running 19.04 last year - and would not want to use the rising temperature as an excuse. However we were well clear of the 8th placed team.
There are no easy pickings in this race. The day's last leg alone saw internationals Andy Vernon, Phil Wicks, Moumin Geele, Neilsen Hall and Overall running for their clubs. Our team time of 1:55.06 left us over 4 minutes outside the medals and was 1min 28 secs down on our 2008 time, principally because we had Shone and Matt Gunby running 18.15 and 18.14 last year. But it was certainly a respectable club performance and easily qualified us for the National Championship (top 25 go through) in 3 weeks' time.
Our B team had finished 64th last year, but we were fielding a stronger team this time round. They were led off by Andrew Clare, whose 20.50 left us 59th out of the 92 men on leg 1. 14 of those teams proved to be incomplete, as 78 teams finished. Angus Holford was content with passing 9 men and clocking 20.17. Still wheezing a little, Bertie Powell ran this race for the first time and got round in 19.50, which was good enough to pull us up to 40th.
From that point progress was a little more difficult. 18-year old Darren Southcott, who was called into the team on Friday, made a good senior debut, dropping 1 place but creeping under the 21-minute barrier with 20.58. Harold Wyber has been unable to train seriously recently but his residual strength helped him take us into 37th as he ran 21.29. The anchor leg was run by Jon Long, whose previous 3 outings here have been 21.18, 21.42 and 21.11. This year he added another item to that range - 21.22. For a final position of 36th, a good 28 places higher than in 2008.
M50
Two outstanding runs, from Dave Cox and Richard Holland, helped earn our over-50s team silver medals in their 4-stage event which preceded the senior race and used the same course.
Senior team manager Terry McCarthy took on leg 1 and was pleased with his 22.17 (though gutted not to run faster than Harold Wyber in the senior B team), which left the team in 7th, but only 32" behind favourites South London Harriers whose man was 2nd behind a one-man team (no 2nd-leg runner). The decision to run Steve Murray in the (one-man) B team was validated as Murray clocked 23.38.
Iain Cumming learned he was in the A team just 35 minutes before he ran, but did a sterling job despite being relatively unfit by his standards, and the Scot kept us in 7th with his canny 23.05.
We then unleashed hell, in the form of Cox and Holland, who ended up 4th and 3rd fastest of the day overall, and whose times would have made our senior B team. Both are excellent men at national level, Cox of course being an England Masters CC international. He stormed around in 20.59 to put us in the bronze position.
Holland took over right behind former multiple world veterans 800/1500m champion Dave Wilcock of neighbours Barnet. No contest. Holland roared past Wilcock and went in chase of the gold. However, South London's Glenn Quarton proved no slouch himself and Holland's 20.58 left us 19" behind the winners, but very cheerful nonetheless.
These silvers were thus added to the silvers our team won - again ahead of Barnet, and with Alistair Holford rather than Cumming - at the South of England CC Champs last winter.