Here we are at the end of the cross country season with the usual fun extravaganza that is the Chingford League Relays. We turned up at Wanstead Flats on a glorious almost Spring morning and even the ground was forgiving. We had the usual mix of ages, paces and experience making up our teams. In all we had 9 teams entered across men, women and U11/U13s. This included 2 teams which were less than the full 4 runners.

We had a full team in the U11/U13 category with the addition of Rosie Weir, who was originally down to be a one girl team but the organisers gave us special dispensation to allow a mixed gender team. In the U11/U13 we bad Kevin Bagate who ran the fastest leg across the whole field and Lawrence Greenwood wasn’t far behind. The team was made up by Charlie and Rosie Weir. The organisers very kindly allowed us to run a mixed gender team. The whole team performed very well.

Our Men’s A team also used two Juniors, Dylan Hanks and Adam Falkowski, and they certainly justified their selection in the top team. The rest of the team was made up with Ben Allen and Matt Hogsden. They fiished in 5th place with a time of 46.58. The Men’s B team also went very well and were 4th B Team to finish. The team was Nikodem Kotwica, Scott Aiken, Robert Sikorski and Paul Brennan. Our C Team was Dave Weir, Paul Ward, Mick Green and Jeremy Newton and they finished 6th C team, a very creditable result. Our D Team was an incomplete team containing John Rose and Remy Parry-Garnaud who both did the Club great credit.

On the women’s front we again had 4 teams entered. The D Team was another incomplete team with Laura Fraser running solo and doing very well and certainly enjoyed the experience. Our A Team was very strong if a little experimental but they certainly delivered. They finished 4th in the women’s competition. The team included Clio Heslop and Siobhan Weir, neither of whom have finished a race this season but it was a good decision for them to be included. The other two members of the team were Kat Alpe and Anja Greenwood. The time for the team was 57.10. The B Team was also strong with Poppy Allwright, Theodosia Green, Claudia Canova and Anna Sikorski finishing 4th B team in a time of 1.04.54. Our C team was enhanced by another couple of Juniors with Caitlin Connolly and Emily Weir joining Anne Ward and Elvira Dominguez Redondo and had a final time of 1.14.07.

It was a wonderful morning with some top running and lots of fun. The morning was completed by the presentation of trophies for the season with Theodosia Green, Anja Greenwood, Charlie Bruce and an outstanding win by Jagna Falkowska picking up the U15 winners trophy. I think everyone enjoyed the morning and we even had a new family dynasty running with the Weir family of 5 competitors joining family dynasties we’ve had in the past. One last shout out for the East London Runners team that put on the charity cake sale and raised £660 for the Move Against cancer. Let’s have a bigger turnout next year, you won’t be disappointed.

Chas