English National CC: Seniors
Both our men's and women's teams finished 12th in the 125th edition of the English National Cross Country Championships held at Parliament Hill Fields on Saturday. The outstanding run came from Georgie-Lou Sales, who finished an excellent 37th in her first senior National. Hywel Care led our men's team home in 79th. In the Men's 9-to-score competition, we were 11th but have been incorrectly listed as 15th through the omission of one of our athletes.
Men
Our men's hopes were hit somewhat by losing two of our stalwarts, Bertie Powell and Kevin Murphy, in the days preceding the race. It meant we went into the race with 7 potential top 200 men rather than 9. More than anything, this affected our chances of producing 6 "good" runs for the main, 6-to-score, competition. As Team Manager Terry McCarthy said, "From 9 men, you'll probably get 6 good runs, but from 7 men you'll probably only get 5". In all, though, we had 19 men on the start line in what turned out to be a large field of 1689 finishers.
In his first senior National, 23-year old Tom Phillips led our men out in around 50th place in the early stages. However, Tom had trained through this race and, though the early miles felt easy, the fatigue told and he slipped backwards. Hywel Care and Daniel Agustus both ran as one might expect, with little to separate them. They passed Phillips and so, too, did Harold Wyber, who continued his excellent season by keeping Agustus in his sights. There was then a gap as we waited for the final two men of our scoring six. Tom Beedell had a rare "bad 'un" as he slipped backwards out of the high 100s into the 200s, but Angus Holford went in the opposite direction, coping well despite the lack of mud on an unusually firm Parliament Hill. Of our 'big names' it was Tomaz Plibersek who was destined to miss out on the scoring six following a stressful week moving house.
Into the finishing straight and our 4 top men were separated by 30 seconds. It was Care 79, Agustus 11" back in 85, Wyber a further 11" back in 94, and Phillips 7" behind in 101. 90" behind, Holford was a solid 190th and Beedell was a disappointed 222.
To close 4 in 101 was pretty good. We had been hoping for a top 10 finish but got 12th. Our friendly neighbours such as Highgate (5th), Newham (7th) and Shaftesbury (8th) were also saying "What if" both during and after the race as they were hit by injuries, planes being fog-bound, etc.
Looking for the positives, one might be impressed by the many big name clubs behind us: Salford, Bristol, Kent, Blackheath, Belgrave, etc. In all, an impressive 125 clubs closed 6 runners.
Plibersek looked well below par in finishing 263 but he - admirably! - wanted another taste of the English National experience on a day when the favourable skies shone on the mass of tents and banners in club colours to create an impressively colourful spectacle. 1' 40" further back, Andrew Clare was our 8th man home in 404. Initially he failed to appear on the automated results. Team Manager McCarthy spoke to the chip timing company at the venue, who said that their system was "99.9% reliable" but promised to look at their video of the finish line. On Monday morning the individual results were amended showing Clare, as he had claimed, in 404th place, 19" ahead of M40 Gareth Cavell in 425. Both Clare and Cavell had good races and were rightly pleased.
At the time of writing, the results show us to be 15th in the 9-to-score, but when Clare's finish is taken into account, we were actually 11th, another sound result. (NB Now amended in one results file.)
Our next man in was CJ Shepherd in 779. More importantly for CJ, who is training for the London Marathon, he got up and ran 1:31 on Sunday morning in the Roding Valley Half Marathon. In 837 was M50 Tony Pamphilon, recovering from illness and starting so cautiously that he was only passed by 2 people throughout the race. In 980, Alexis Atkinson went off too hard ("again", he said) but crept under the mythical 1000 barrier by 10" and 20 places as the runners poured through at 2 per second. M45 Martin Mack missed said mythical barrier by 16" and 22 places but he continues to get fitter and always runs a good race. In 1114, young athlete coach M55 Alistair Holford also always runs to his strengths and makes the most of his limited training.
Half a minute back, M45 Ron Daniel made a rare but welcome appearance and shimmied his way to 1149, almost a minute ahead of ever-present Andy Smith in 1212. Smith, in turn, had over a minute in hand over M50 Paul Stockings (1298). Half a minute behind Stocko was M45 Steve Lambert (1343), who was the OOFG (out-of-form-guy) on Saturday but the IFG (in-form guy) on Sunday when he ran a decent 99 minute Roding Valley Half on very tired legs. One minute further back from Lambo was one of our other young athlete coaches, M40 Richard Hogg in 1389.
Parliament Hill National day being a special day, it was good to see a large crowd of Woodford athletes and supporters crowded into the Old Oak pub at Gospel Oak to celebrate. Many were then involved next morning in helping out at the successful Roding Valley Half Marathon. So well done to all on a tremendous club weekend!
Lost property : Terry McCarthy was handed two (2) jackets after the race. Alistair Holford was handed a pair of trousers. Contact either person for more details.