Chingford League road race, Victoria Park
After last week’s mud at Parliament Hill, the smooth tarmac of Victoria Park held an attraction for some of our young athletes not otherwise involved in the Southern Schools fixture at Reigate or the Essex Indoor Championships at Lee Valley. We had a good turn-out for this low key event and some encouraging results with 3 individual firsts, 3 second places and six other placed runners.
The lack of officials, drawn elsewhere to other events, made for some moderately shambolic starting but, as the sun began to show, the mood lightened particularly amongst the Woodford supporters. In the U13s race, first to show at the finish was Perry Rowan who turned the tables this week on team-mate Daniel Rowden who just claimed second place by outsprinting an Orion runner in the closing metres. For the U13G, Billie Bradley was our first runner home in 7th, with Alicia McArdell in 12th and Issy Bedeau in 15th.
The other race was a combined U15/17s race for both genders comprising just under 40 runners. Once the results has been split out, we had wins for Holly Bedeau (U15G) and Ryan Dunne (U15B), with second places for Eleanor Flaherty (U17W) and Sam Benge (U17M) with other placings for Isobel Moss (3rd) and Jessica Lambert (4th) in the U15G with Stephanie Smith not far behind them in 7th. Similarly in the U17W race, Suna Yokes claimed 3rd with Lauren Freeman in 4th whilst Sean Kenny also claimed 4th in the U15B race.
The Seniors then followed and with this roving reporter seeking to get round in one piece, little attention could be paid to Bertie Powell at the head of proceedings where (having accompanied his father Trevor over first few hundred metres of his comeback race) he sped through the field for 2nd place in 25mins 28secs for the course which was a shade under 5 miles. Richard Holland, racing for first time since the Essex Vets, was 12th in 27:32 with Alan Rugg next in (20th in 27:50).