County CC Champs: Men: Essex, etc
It was the weekend of the county CC championships and, of the seniors, our men in particular made themselves felt, both in Essex and around other counties. At Basildon, led by Tom Phillips in an excellent 5th place, we took team silvers behind Chelmsford, while four of our other men made the top 6 of their respective championships.
It was a rather threadbare team that we put out in the 12K Essex championships - if we were to win anything as a team we were, essentially, dependent on 6 men and 6 men only, since there was a serious gap in standard between our 6th man (theoretically, Gareth Cavell) and our 7th best. And, of those six, Kevin Murphy had not trained at all since injuring himself just after the Stevenage Met League race before Christmas.
IIn the early stages of the race Tom Phillips was up there, tucked in just behind the leaders, with Harold Wyber and Darren Southcott both running aggressively in the top 12. Angus Holford was a good bit further back but looked extremely comfortable, while Murphy and Cavell were well back. After 1 lap of the 3-lap race, the favourites Chelmsford looked in control of the race, while we were certainly behind Southend AC too.Phillips ran well. Though slipping to 7th for a little while, he remained strong and clawed his way back. Towards the end, he was locked in a battle with Chelmsford's James Williams, who was warned that he had to run for home early because our boy is the reigning Essex 800m champion so was theoretically the faster in a sprint finish. So Williams put Phillips under heavy pressure, but our man prevailed at the death for 5th place and notched an automatic selection for the Inter-Counties Championships in March - if he wants it, that is.
Wyber, whose preceding week had been spent skiing, and Southcott both remained strong while losing a little ground. Holford ran an immaculate race, judging his strength to perfection, and came through to a solid 13th place, 25" ahead of Wyber. Southcott, still an U20, ran strongly and his principal weakness is a lack of experience. He was 35" behind Wyber in 17th place, but ahead of plenty of good athletes.
The Southend lads were slipping backwards while Murphy and Cavell both gained ground. Former champion Murphy had a storming last mile, gaining around 10 places to finish 28th, while M40 Cavell, in 37th, was only pipped by 5 very good vets.
The medals were clear-cut in the end. Chelmsford who, to their credit, have established a popular training group at their home track and, through it, attracted some good athletes to transfer to them, were worthy winners with a team score of 68, well ahead of our 114. We, in turn, were well ahead of Southend AC (182) and Colchester Harriers (198).
Team manager Terry McCarthy was pleased with his sextet, "The boys gave it everything and ran well. I was particularly nervous about Kevin Murphy's injury, but it didn't give him any pain during the race."
Our next man in was M50 Alun Evans, almost 7 minutes further back in 93rd place. He just held off, by 4", a strongly finishing M45 Martin Mack (94), who is improving impressively quickly at the moment. 35" later came in M55 Alistair Holford (102), for whom 12K is certainly on the long side. Andy Smith (111) was a further minute down but got the better of M50 Paul Stockings (114) by around 20". Stockings certainly took revenge on M45 Steve Lambert (122), who has for a week basked in the glory of a rare victory over Stockings in last week's Ilford 10 CC, but who looked like a pale shadow of that athlete yesterday. The 'in-form guy' became the out-of-form guy within the space of 6 short but glorious days! Such is the unforgiving world of cross country running.
These 6 men comprised our 'B' team, and we were in fact one of only 2 clubs to field the 12 men that merits a B team, behind Springfield Striders. Neither of our neighbours Ilford AC or Orion Harriers closed a full team. And we, in fact, finished 3 more men: M40 Richard Hogg finished 128, M50 Tom Spanyol 130 and M60 Roger Green 134 in the field of 171 finishers.
Places in March's Inter-Counties race were also up for grabs elsewhere around the country and we had 4 very good results. In St Helens, Tooting-based Hywel Care finished a fine 2nd in his native Merseyside Champs. Feeling he had little to lose and something to gain by going out hard, he went with a good early pace set by Liverpool's Jonny Mellor, who is a 28.50 10K man. He subsequently slowed as Mellor went away, but he stayed ahead of 31.10 man James Tartt to clinch the silver.
At the Buckinghamshire Champs at Wing, Epping-based Tom Beedell, who was 2nd last year, finished 4th this year and acknowledged that he is not quite at last season's level right now. He is looking forward to a good run in next weekend's London City Runner Metropolitan League CC fixture.
Ben Hope and Daniel Agustus this year joined Kent AC and Belgrave Harriers respectively under the 2nd claim rule, and both finished 6th in their county champs. At Dartford, Greenwich-based Hope was just pipped by 2:18 marathon man James Connor and thus emulated his own proud father, who was also a Kent county CC representative. Kew-based Agustus was suffering from a cold but will also have clinched his place in the Surrey team as he finished 6th and took some useful scalps in the race held at Dorking.