Chingford League CC, Claybury 27/10
A small contingent of our junior athletes were present for the Chingford League fixture in Claybury Park on Saturday, the numbers depleted in part by the following day’s Eastern Championships at Colchester and no doubt, by the weather which was marginally above freezing.
A highlight was Daniel Rowden winning the U13 Boys race. Our men won the team race and Bertie Powell won the individual men's event.
The day was instructive for our younger athletes as it reinforced the need for a thorough warm up before racing and also showed that an apparently frozen surface can break up and be soft under the surface requiring the use of spikes. It was evident watching the runners that several had erred on both counts.
Daniel Rowden, however, prepared well and had a clear win in the U13B race in which he used sound tactics in running with Enfield’s Harizi Youcef for the first lap and a half before developing his 3 second winning lead on the second half of the last lap. James Wakefield finished 9th in this small field of 15 runners but again showed further promise for the future (which will include another two years in this age group). James’ finishing time was 33 seconds quicker than his Met League run over the same course in October. The boys’ 2 two lap race was also contested by the U13 girls and Katherine Myers (pink with the cold) and Niamh Bartlett (still smiling) finished 10th and 11th in the bitter conditions.
The U15s and 17s were also run together in a single, 3 lap race around the open part of the park; U17Men Lorcan Murphy, Sean Kenny and Sam Benge made the early pace along with an Orion contingent but Sean and Sam faded as the race progressed and it was Lorcan, finishing in 2nd place who finished strongest but behind Orion’s Alex Gordon. Elliot Joseph (U15) took a more circumspect approach, and by maintaining a steady pace was able to come past many of the faster starters in the last lap to finish 5th U15B but with a time that would have given him 4th place in the older age group (and was ahead of U17 team mates Sean and Sam). Our only woman runner in this race was U15G Lucy Hayes, who suffered from having insufficient time to warm up and struggled valiantly for a couple of laps before calling it a day.
In the senior race, Bertie Powell took what was, surprisingly, his first-ever Chingford League victory, by over half a minute - and this despite wearing normal training shoes. We also packed well in the top 10, with Tom Phillips (5), Ed Messer (6) and Jim Roche (8) having solid runs, while U17 James Stockings again demonstrated that he will be well prepared to race at senior level when he steps up in the 2012-13 season. At this point in his career, a race like Saturday's is an over-distance training run.