Men 3rd, Women 10th as Videsh and Louise put the Green in Greenford
Woodford’s senior men improved on their already solid 4th in the Claybury Met League of the season, to finish 3rd at the first ‘away’ fixture, at Horsenden Hill in Greenford. The women’s team had earlier finished 10th, and there was great representation near the front of both races, with Videsh Weerakkody, Tom Frith, Louise Gilbert and Oliver Bushdari all in the top 10.
Louise Gilbert was first home in 6th with another impressive top-10 Met League finish. Louise will shortly concentrate on competing indoors but the team is very grateful for her Met League appearances so far- with hopefully one more to come at Scrubs! Next home was Emily Caton with a much improved 34th position. This was particularly pleasing given she admits not yet being back to full racing fitness.
Having battled together on the 3rd lap of Claybury, Lydia Doye (88th) was ahead of Kate Stockings (107th) for the entirety of the race- a reflection of a normal Tuesday night training session and a pleasing result for Team Manager Kate who took this as a positive sign of Lydia’s ever-increasing fitness and racing mentality! Not far behind was Dawn Holford (113rd) who much preferred this course to the hills of Claybury. Given the very flat profile of Wormwood Scrubs, we’re looking forward to seeing what happens there - could Dawn break the top 100 on that course? Katie Olert (118th) made her return to the scoring A-team after her maternity break with baby Isaac. Katie continues to move forward in each race (and each training session) and had both Kate and Dawn in her sights come the end! Finally, Rachael Lam closed out squad of WGEL ladies, finishing in 162th.
The ladies had been very much looking forward to giving Holly Huddleston a good send off before she jets off to the slopes of Canada for the ski season. Sadly, the Central Line trains had other ideas and so Holly missed the chance to race! However, having thrown herself into club life since joining in the spring we know that she’ll be back in the new year and wish her all the best for her adventure!
In the men’s race, Videsh Weerakkody had made what he later described as a “delusional” start, racing away with the eventual top 3 in the early minutes of this short 7.5k race. But what might once have been delusional approaches are now paying dividends for Videsh, as his new training routine with Herts Phoenix gave him the strength and endurance to hold on to 4th. Tom Frith took the opposite approach, exiting the first field only in around 20th place, but moving consistently forward through the field to eventually finish 5th, 17 seconds behind Videsh but outsprinting Highgate’s Peter Chambers by less than a second. In contrast to some recent Highgate or Shaftesbury Barnet dominance at the front, four different clubs had been represented in the top four, and Tom’s sprint secured the under-recognised ‘first second-man’ kudos for Woodford on the day. Very close behind was Oliver Bushdari, in a PB-equalling 7th, and also the ‘first third-man’ on the day, underlining Woodford’s strength at the front of the field on this occasion. Oliver was slightly frustrated to have not set off with the group in front, leaving him to run in no-man’s land with a consistent gap most of the way through.
Andrew Mariani was next in, in 14th, a dramatic 13-place improvement on Claybury on a course much to his preference, despite having to do all his downhill overtaking in the long grass to the side of the narrow paths the course took us round. Such was the stacked nature of the race that Andrew was only 10 seconds off 9th place, and pulling 10 seconds away gained him 9 places on Tom Beedell, in 23rd, who had tracked him for much of the race. Both Tom Adolphus (33rd) and Angus Holford (54th) had been disappointed at Claybury but had come to come Ealing with an uninterrupted block of training under their belts and were rewarded with significant improvements, with Tom more than cutting his position in half. Angus getting within a place of his run here last year, he takes a signal as being reasonably on-track for the season. He was also pleased to hold off Dan Steel’s charge through the field to 56th, itself a 9-place improvement on Claybury.
Deelan Bushdari ran a consistent race to 74th, like brother Oliver a Met League PB. After we fielded four juniors at Claybury, Aiden O’Driscoll in 105th was our only U20 to return this time. Despite his tougher time on this occasion, we hope he can persuade his cohort-mates back to make the same powerful difference to the overall team score.
Bertie Powell (109th) has also been gaining fitness rapidly with his low-mileage high-quality routine centred on the Tuesday night sessions he leads. Although his dream of a top-100 this season seems achievable, he will continue to be cautious to avoid a major injury setback.
Simon Beedell (163rd) closed the 12-main team, almost 150 places ahead of our 13th man, showing how important every additional potential A-teamer is to the final team score. This took us to 3rd place on the day, behind only Highgate and Victoria Park; and the combined men’s and women’s team still sit 4th in the Howard Williams Trophy.
Among the B-teamers there was a race-long tussle eventually won by Phil Doye (311th) from Asif Hussain (316th). Phil was running his first cross-country race since school, and we hope that with experience he’ll make the same impression on the Vet categories as namesake Joel has done at the front. Asif had laboured round with several ineffectually small spikes in his shoes, surely costing precious seconds through the muddier patches. He’ll be back with a vengeance once the WD40, vaseline, pliers, application of a vice and if necessary a drill have done their work. Ben Stockill initially offered no comment on his 339th place run, before reflecting on the factors in his control he could change before the next race. An appreciative mention here to Ben’s son Harry, who along with the women’s team provided support and encouragement all the way round. Both Feroz Manzoor (367) and Paul Stockings (379th) finished with well over 20 runners behind them, with Paul attempting to blow the cobwebs of a bad cough away with this run.
After a 5-week gap from race 1 to 2, race 3 of the Met League season is already less than 3 weeks away. Horsenden Hill doesn’t really use the hill but you have to run through plenty of scrub. The next venue, Wormwood Scrubs, has enough acres of football pitch for the scrub itself to not be needed for the course. The team has momentum, but isn’t a perpetual motion machine. All welcome on December 6th to keep pushing in whatever capacity members can best help!