London City Runner Met League race 2: Senior Women / Young Athletes
Woodford runners achieved a rare clean sweep of first place results in yesterday’s London City Runner Metropolitan League fixture at Stevenage with Canaan Solomon, Rosie Poole, Amelia Barrett and James Stockings all winning their respective races.
Their wins were with varying degrees of comfort, James Stockings (U17M) was 17 seconds clear of his nearest rival, Rosie Poole (U13G) had a 13 second buffer, whilst Canaan Solomon (U13B) relied on 7 seconds and Amelia Barrett (U15G) held just 3 seconds advantage at the finishing line.
With this fixture having been cancelled for the previous two seasons due to snow and ice, it was a relief for the organisers to be able to finally host the event. The conditions were almost perfect for racing with little wind and mild air; the course could charitably be described as undulating but in reality was a mostly flat and even surface of short grass with only the wooded section having any awkward parts. There was also a delightful, fast descent to the finish line to welcome tired legs home.
Our wins in this fixture made up for our depleted young athlete teams; the English Schools Cup and exams accounting for some of the absentees but those that did attend gave a good account of themselves. Each of our winners led from the start, with Poole and Barrett both taking leads that they never relinquished; Solomon and Stockings however both sat with the leading runners for the first half of their races before forcing the pace in the woods. Canaan Solomon confessed afterwards to being worried about the speed of the race and so felt the need to make a break to get away before it was too late; James Stockings however pushed on and was surprised not to be tracked more closely.
Of our other runners, 10 year old Alfie Poole (13th) gave a good account of himself again in finishing 1m 30’ down on Canaan; just a pity that he will have to wait until he is 11 to be eligible to score. James Wakefield (25th) and Harry Cavell (26th) were separated by a couple of seconds and were just over half a minute down on Alfie Poole with Taylor Reece in 36th and Chris Hogg in 39th positions. For the U13Gs, Aoife Guyatt had another good run and finished 8th, 1m 13’ down on Rosie whilst new girl Martina Pettersen (16th) competed ably in her first race for the club. For Jodi Ratcliff, it was an unhappy 22nd place after holding 2nd position early on but suffering from sickness in the woods.
Our other runner in the U17W race behind Amelia Barrett was another U15, Alicia McArdle who took 8th place, 46’ behind Amelia. Perry Rowan, also U15B was our other finisher behind James Stockings in the U17M race; he claimed 6th place, 44’ down on James in the biggest young athlete field of the day with 53 runners.
With our depleted teams, we slipped to 3rd place in the Howard Williams Trophy for overall positions so we will need a fuller turnout at Ruislip on 17th December to claw our way back up that table. And for the LCR Met League ‘statos’ out there - the task is to find out when (if) a club last had four young athlete individual winners on the same day.
Women's race
Fine and mild weather greeted our ladies for round 2 at Stevenage and it was good to see a turnout of eleven ladies wearing the green and white hoops.
Emily Moss, in her first Met League, ran well to lead the team home in 11th spot in 22 mins 35, some 1 mins 50 behind winner Emily Pidgeon. Next home was Kat Gundersen in 15th, followed home by another excellent outing from Bernadine Pritchett in 18th place. Evie Serventi closed in 21st. Rachel Lund, enjoying good form, came home 26th. If only we had one more runner in the top 25 we would be right in the mix for top spot. Nevertheless it was not to be and we are grateful for Uni student Clauda Conway to close the team in with 50th spot. We were just 25 points adrift of the winners in 3rd spot on the day, and only 67 points adrift overall so with 3 matches still to go it's all to play for.
Our b team placed 4th in division 2, 71 points adrift. Andrea Possee was 57th with junior Kate Stockings also home from uni in 64th spot. As reliable as ever Alex Wardle placed 69th with Kavita Solder in improved form for 78th. Emily Godden in her first outing for Woodford placed 90th.
Lets hope we get a similar turnout at Ruislip and close that gap in both divisions. A big "Well Done" to all ladies for their fine efforts today at sunny Fairlands Park.