London City Runner Met League race 5: Young Athletes
Rosie Poole made it five Met League wins in a row and the U13 Girls team retained the league championship at the last London City Runner Metropolitan League fixture in Perivale on Saturday afternoon.
The bitterly cold weather probably accounted for the large number of absentees in all the YA races (and not just from Woodford) and much of the course was still blanketed by a couple of inches of snow. However, with clear skies, the sun was able to warm the southern slopes of Horsenden Hill so the conditions were not as bad as feared and the start line dilemma was almost one of ‘will I be too warm in the extra layers?’
Photos (including of the women's race) by T McCarthy
Our U13 Girls team were well represented with five runners on the start line.
Rosie, quietly anxious to make a clean sweep of her Met League races this season, was always at the head of proceedings. From the start gun, down the gentle slope towards the narrow gap in the hedge and off out of sight of the start field she maintained her lead and by the time she returned from the opposite direction, she had carved out a safe margin of 31 seconds over Thames Valley’s India Weir in second place. Edie Preece was our second scorer home in 7th and showed an improving understanding of her ability, this time always in the top ten and making good use of the final downhill section in the sprint for the line. With the bulk of the field finishing within a minute and a half of each other, there was little time between Edie and our fifth finisher Olivia Hounsome (15th) as the team showed good commitment to the cause of retaining the title. Aiofe Guyatt (11th) was 23 seconds behind Edie and Katy Petyt (13th) a further 11 seconds down. This performance put them first on the day and gave them an unassailable season long lead with Herts Phoenix second in the table, 54 points behind.
For the U13 Boys, as Canaan Solomon was missing, it was down to Alfie Poole to head home the team with another fine showing in 13th. James Wakefield (16th), Harry Cavell (21st) and Taylor Reece (25th) all worked hard and helped bring the team home in 5th place in the league table. With Alfie able to score next winter and the core of the team having another season in the age group, we will be able to improve on this.
In the two other races, U17M James Stockings was our only runner and he finished off his young athlete Met League career with a fine second place again behind Shaftsbury’s Michael Callegari (who had also won at Claybury and Ruislip). The first four runners were well spread with Callegari having 25 seconds on Stockings who, in turn had 14 seconds on another Shaftsbury runner in third place.
Overall, our teams finished 3rd equal in the Howard Williams Trophy for the combined junior team scores; all things considered a reasonable performance but one which we could easily improve on if more athletes could be persuaded to make it to the start line each time.