Met League CC race 2: Young Athletes
With grey skies and light rain descending on Fairlands Park it made for some interesting running, especially in the wooded part of the course which covered the final 1000 metres of the races.
Although not quite the turnout we had at Claybury, we still managed two individual winners. Bella Hoy, who won here last year, had her finest
race by defeating the classy Ellie Baker from Herts Phoenix, who is two years older than Bella, in the Under 15/17 girls race. Bella took an early lead and never looked back. Also taking charge early on was Canaan Solomon, who notched up his second consecutive Met League win this season.
Two athletes who deserve special mention are Rosie Poole and Megan Caswell, who both sustained heavy falls in the woods but had the courage to get up and finish.
For the Under 13 girls, we only had two runners but both Mia Hirons 11th and Megan Caswell 14th held on to their forward positions in great style from a field of over 50 starters.
In the Under 13 boys race Alfie Poole had another fine run, coming in 9th, just 30 seconds down on the winner. Behind Alfie two year 7s again performed well with Joe Geller 15th and David Badmus in 23rd - again in a field in excess of 50 runners.
Behind Bella in the Under 15/17 girls race, we had a fine run from Rosie Poole in 12th place despite her fall and Eddie Preece again showed good endurance in placing 17th. Jessica Archard, a first year Under 15 and making her debut in this event, ran really well to place 27th. These results mean the girls are ahead in the league for this age group.
Behind Canaan in the Under 15/17M race, Harry Cavell in 35th place had a fine run from; 5 places further back came Owen Armstrong, still managing to get round despite carrying a broken arm. In 60th place was 800 metre runner Kyle Lundie with Chris Hogg just one place behind in 61st place, both runners giving their best. Just 4 places back was Taylor Reece, with Jack Shury closing in our runners in 75th.
So in the Howard Williams Trophy, Woodford are now 4th just 5 points behind leaders Shaftesbury.
One thing that is noticeable is the increase in size of fields this year. Just two years ago there was only an average of 25 runners in the Under 13 girls age group, now there are 50 and all other fields have increased in size by some considerable margin.
One hope is that our youngsters turn out in force on 21st December despite Xmas festivities and keep Woodford to the fore.
Well done to all youngsters who raced for the green and white hoops.