Clean sweep at first Essex Fell Championship
Woodford men took a clean sweep of medals at the inaugural Essex Fell Championship on Saturday. The new race was hosted by Orion Harriers over a 10km course with 1500 feet of ascent, over two laps between Pole Hill and Yardley in Epping Forest. Tom Beedell was crowned the first Essex champion in the discipline, with 30 seconds on Angus Holford, and 85 seconds on Tom Adolphus, who took silver and bronze respectively.
Tom Beedell - Essex Fell Champion
Woodford's medallists - (l-r) Adolphus, Beedell, HolfordWoodford's only woman representative was Dawn Holford, who finished 7th woman overall, and 6th in the Essex championship. Dawn hadn't rested up at all, with this race forming the ultimate 'race distance with conditioning factor' training session ahead of her main current target, the Colchester 10k in 3 weeks time.
Alistair Holford was 39th man, and felt he ran better than expected. He was especially grateful that the most rutted hardened mud sections were all on uphill sections, increasing his confidence to descend quickly. Orion Harriers were awarding non-championship age group prizes in 10 year bands, leaving Alistair slightly unlucky in that if the race was held just two months later he would have comfortably taken the M70 competition.
All five Woodies were glad to have taken on the challenge, and met it. All expressed some version of relief at having judged the race reasonably well - Tom Beedell likened the fear of the metaphorical wheels coming off to the risk of fatigue in a 3000m steeplechase, which makes clearing the barriers harder and more fatiguing in a vicious cycle. Alistair Holford declared himself "surprisingly buoyant" in the aftermath. It remains to be seen whether this will become a regular fixture, but congratulations to Orion for putting it on and for their generous £5-including-a-free-drink-afterwards entry offer which made for a sociable wait for the presentations. The next club fixture is the first SAL, at home, on 16th May.