Men hold on to 4th in Met League; Scottish silver for Richard Holland

Woodford’s senior men arrived at Trent Park with hopes of finishing in the league’s top 3 already extinguished, but nursing a slender lead in the race for fourth. Despite narrowly losing fourth place to Harrow on the day, Woodford nevertheless prevailed in the overall league standings thanks to the quality represented over the whole season. Despite having more than a full team in the week running up to this fixture, the ladies team was decimated by bad luck on the day with illness and injury seemingly everywhere.  

The course at Trent Park for both the men’s and women’s races was, at 7500m, the shortest fixture of the season, but the unpredictable and downright filthy mud made for the toughest course experienced by any team member for several years. The quagmire of Nottingham’s Wollaton Park for the 2020 National is the only competition this correspondent thinks comes close. Running times were thus comparable with the Claybury course, a whole 600m longer, and positions proved an interesting shake-up from the nearly double-length (for the men) but much smoother and firmer course, at the Southerns two weeks ago. 

  In the women’s race Zoe Watson, Kate Stockings and Katie Olert turned out to battle the mud and finished 72nd, 98th and 123rd respectively. All were pleased with their performances given the conditions and Katie is looking forward to a much flatter, faster and drier race in the upcoming Seville Marathon! We wish her the best of luck as she aims for sub-4 hours.

Whilst we didn’t quite manage Team Manager Kate’s goal of a full team each fixture this season, for the first time in many years, there are green shots a plenty in the women’s squad. Katie Olert and Claire Allen were new recruits to both the club and cross country this season and proved invaluable to the team- racing 5 and 3 of the Met League fixtures respectively. They have since been joined by new members Gillian Whelan, Rachael Lam and Lauren Ridley who we look forward to seeing race in green and white hoops soon- likely in the upcoming relay events. Whilst the small teams of this season mean that the women drop down into Division 2 for the 2024-25 season, these 5 new recruits are the start of adding much needed depth to the women’s squad and we look forward to seeing the team continue to grow throughout the year. 

In the men’s race Tom Beedell was first in, in 7th place. This was an objectively strong run for Tom, though he regretted not having the opportunity to test himself against a few of the elite who chose to miss this fixture. The surprise package of the day was Tom Adolphus, who had declared himself having not done so much training recently, but his 27th position made for an 18-place personal best in a Met League, and he took the scalp of Angus Holford, for the first time, despite Angus’ 29th representing his best Met League of the interrupted season, and only 3 places down on the 2023 fixture. 

Nathan Wright took the race out hard, entering the first corner inside the top 10 before settling down. He endured a difficult second lap to finish 35th, for the second time this season also taking the kudos of top U20 on the day. He also held off marathon maestro Dan Steele who was 39th in as controlled a performance as possible over this terrain, 8 days ahead of his target race, the Seville Marathon. Fellow marathon aficionado Mike Waddington was 65th. Not wishing to disrupt his programme for his own target race of London, Mike had run 20 miles the previous day.  He nevertheless made a valuable contribution to the team’s packing, even if the ideal ‘tempo effort’ wasn’t quite possible due to the course. 
 

Simon Beedell was next in 182nd, holding together a solid run despite several niggles that the tough course accentuated. Next in was Bertie Powell was 189th, in his 97th consecutive Met League. Following on from finishing 188th at Uxbridge and 187th at Welwyn Garden City, is this the most consistent Bertie’s ever been running? Jon Williams made his first cross country appearance of 2024 to finish 195th. This split the difference between his performances at Wormwood Scrubs and Uxbridge earlier this season. Current holder of multiple M65 titles, Tony Pamphilon was 223rd, declaring this the hardest cross country course he’d ever known. Fellow Vet and 11th man in was Paul Stockings in 328th, finishing ahead of another 68 runners in a field just shy of 400. 

Absent on the day was long-term Met League stalwart Richard Holland, who earned the club more national Vets honours at the Scottish Masters Cross Country Championships in Forres the following day, taking silver in the M65 category. 

Thoughts now turn to the (English) National Cross Country, where a scoring team of 6 are expected to turn out. Re-crowned Met League Champions Highgate Harriers will be among the favourites at Weston Park. They were pushed closely over all five fixtures by eventual second-placers Victoria Park & Tower Hamlets, and less closely by early-2000s giants London Heathside. Only those three clubs have consistently had the depth to finish a strong scoring 12 this season. With an influx of U17s into Woodford’s senior ranks hoped for soon, we have the potential to compete with them on quantity as well as quality in the coming seasons, but for now, holding on as the ‘best of the rest’ is a positive result. 

 

Met League Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRLT6xnvs_oh4Np5O5aW3jEnsZpArYxt60VKEk1iZo2L48_EorlM4FIbEKLEOai1W-PZ5Al3fdfk3WJ/pubhtml?gid=537668391&single=true 

 

Photos by Alex Wardle: https://www.flickr.com/photos/90204024@N03/albums/72177720314710581/with/53522541485 

 

Scottish Masters Results

https://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/forres-masters/