London City Runner Met League race 4: Men & Women
Our senior men's team made it four match wins out of four on Saturday at Trent Park, Cockfosters, as they closed in on a superb fourth consecutive league title. Our women's team took an excellent first match win of the season and remain 3rd in the table. Our men's B team slipped slightly, mostly due to an oversight by team management, but remain well distant from any relegation battle. Our C team, in Division 3, was affected by a relative (very relative) lack of numbers. Daniel Agustus once more led the team home but there were many pleasing runs, with Dan Yaxley's possibly being the most eye-opening.
With the onset of the colds and flu season and a stream of alternative race options, including schools and indoors, the field of 335 finishers was the smallest of the season so far. Numbers at the sharp end, particularly, were thinner on the ground and many of our men were happy to record their highest finishing position of the season. The terrain was undulating and quite firm
Photos by Terry McCarthy. (New camera, getting used to it, and my new Kodak batteries died after 32 photos!)
Men's A team
Daniel Agustus has been leading us home all season and our team consistency has been based on his. Only Nick Torry of Serpentine has earned more points for his club this winter so far. And it was Torry fighting it out at the front of the race again and getting the win over an in-form Shaun Dixon of Highgate. Spread out a little, they were followed by Kev Skinner (Newham), Ben Pochee (Highgate) and the very surprising Tom Aldred (Heathside, previous best of 32nd!), before Agustus just stayed ahead of men with good reputations such as Huw Lobb (Serpentine) and Olly Laws (Newham). So it was good to see Tom Phillips in 9th place, in amidst this company, finishing just 8 seconds behind Agustus to notch his first Met League top 10 position - of many, we hope!
Tom Beedell (12th) is the league's 4th highest points scorer and should be pleased to be a mere 13" behind Agustus. There was a good race between Bertie Powell (17), whose troubled winter had seen him suffer foot problems earlier in the week, and Tomaz Plibersek (18) who is currently on his biggest mileage ever. Powell was delighted to find himself back in the top 20 which has been his natural habitat for 8 years now, while Plibersek was pleased to simply contribute to the team effort as part of his training.
We had a trio of happy men in the 20s: Harold Wyber continued his revival (75, 56, 33 in the previous races) with a fine 21st place, around 10" ahead of Angus Holford (27) and Kevin Murphy (28). Holford had had a cold during the week, while Murphy has just been able to recommence training after a shin injury. Darren Southcott (33) achieved two of his season's goals - to make the scoring twelve and to beat his Met League PB of 43. He was still slightly dissatisfied with his run, which is no bad thing, but he was 2nd U20 finisher.
Team Manager Terry McCarthy had warned his men that there would likely be A team places "up for grabs" as the line-up did not have the same tremendous strength of the first 3 fixtures, and Dan Yaxley certainly took advantage as he was our 10th man home. He has worked hard on his endurance this winter and improved from 88th at Claybury to 59th at Stevenage and now an extremely pleasing 44th here. Despite having had a hard training week, he showed impressive strength over the latter stages as he passed Matt Molloy (60) and Mat Clarkson (50) and was the 3rd U20 finisher. This was only Clarkson's second run for us and shows that we have signed another good man who has a lot to offer despite being on the cusp of his 40th birthday. With Molloy and Chris Symonds, we have an interesting trio of talented, Barnet-based triathletes. Our 12th man on the day, Molloy reports seeing Clarkson and Symonds running past his house as he does bike workouts on his indoor trainer.
We went into the race with an intimidating, 300-point lead over Serpentine. On this occasion Serpies closed their 12 in 58 and 15 in 62, but it was not enough to prevent us growing our lead as we closed 9 in 33, compared with their 5, and added another 70 points to the gap that separates us. To win 4 races on the trot is, in itself, incredibly rare and possibly unprecedented, certainly in the last 25 years.
Manager Terry McCarthy said, "It was hugely satisfying to get another win today despite fielding what was almost our "Carling Cup team". To be fair to Serpentine, who have been tremendous opponents for the last 3 seasons, we knocked the wind out of their sails before Christmas, and now we just need a steady hand on the tiller to guide us in to port." When asked whether a 4th consecutive title was "in the bag", McCarthy hesitated, "I'm not sure," he said and cocked his ear, "Is that the fat lady singing or a siren luring us onto the rocks...?"
Women's race (by John Stow)
A fine and cold sunny day greeted our 10 runners at Trent Park with all its lovely settings. It was great to have Lauren Stewart and Emily Moss on the line for this fixture and I felt we had a chance to maybe win this match.
With some good early packing, our runners had a tough 6 k to negotiate with a steep uphill conclusion to each of the 2 laps. Emily Moss, running a fine race, led the team home in 4th spot. Emily was really pleased with this but admitted she found the course a tough one. Just two places further back was an excellent run from Lauren Stewart in 6th place. Kat Gundersen continued her fine winter with a good 14th spot. Bernadine Pritchett and Rachel Lund, our sole representatives at last week's Essex Champs, again ran well to place 22nd and 23rd. We only had to wait till 43rd for the team to close in with Maggie Powell running well.
I honestly thought we had won it, but one or two of my colleagues thought that may not be the case. So although it was close, we won by a small margin.
Our other four ladies ran well. Anne Gombert was much higher than at Stevenage with a good 46th spot. Jenny Thomas, as reliable as ever, 63rd same for Kavita Solder 73rd. Alex Wardle closed our squad in with 97th. All in all, a very satisfying result from a very reliable group of good club athletes. Well done to all of them.
Men's B and C teams
When the results were published, 66th place was noted as "not declared" and "guest", suggesting that Jim Roche's name had not been associated with a number on the team sheet. It was unfortunate, because it meant that Paul Stockings (247) counted in the B team instead of Roche, losing us 181 points. On a personal level, though, it was a good result for Roche, who had been doubtful with a cold. Gavin Lewis had confessed that his result was going to be an incentive to get back into a training routine, and so it proved, his 75th in no way indicating his capabilities. There was a good little battle 20 seconds behind between training partners Ed Messer (90) and M40 Gareth Cavell (86) and Rob Cox (92). Cavell looked a little stale, but the other lads could be happy with improved runs.
For Sam Benge (134), it was a case of "from the ridiculous to the sublime", as he was only able to get away from his bar job serving orange-coloured celebrities at a leading Epping nightclub at 5 o'clock in the morning - not the best preparation for the team's assistant manager and close advisor to manager McCarthy. Benge vowed to book race days off in the future. In 153rd, it was good to see Steve Dawkins back despite his having let things slip slightly over the Christmas holidays. M50 Alun Evans crept inside the 200 barrier with 197th and just maintained the upper-hand over the deceptively effective Martin Mack, who strikes from behind like a cobra.
Despite injury, new signing Chris Maybin made a decent initial contribution by lending Alexis Atkinson (227) some shorts. McCarthy chided Yorkshireman Atkinson, "It might well be deemed acceptable "oop Noorth" to race around the fields in your Y-fronts, but sensibilities south of Watford Gap are somewhat more refined." We then saw a stream of Woodie ever-presents in, give or take, a reasonably familiar order: M50 Alistair Holford (236), Andy Smith (239), M50 Paul Stockings (247), M45 Steve Lambert (258), Michael Murphy (281), M40 Richard Hogg (284), M50 Tom Spanyol (301), M55 Stuart Phillips (306) and M60 Trevor Powell (327).
It's a shame that the B team slipped to 7th in Division 1, behind Serpentine B, due to the administrative error, but we could regain this place with a good performance in the last fixture. Our C team remain 4th in Division 3.
Interesting statistic 1: 23 different men have now scored for the A team this season. An impressive figure taking into account the standard of our performances and of the league in general.
Interesting statistic 2: We have 15 of the 44 highest points scorers in the league this season.