Men’s Team

If you think cross-country running can be challenging you should have seen Saturday’s course in Epping on Saturday. There was lots of mud, ice, frozen ruts and hills that make Trent Park look flat. The TP men turned up with 15 hardy souls which isn’t bad given the weather, the deluge of races at the moment and the powers that be deciding to put the Middlesex Champs on at the same time. 

Final league results are not yet available but a quick look suggests we may have finished 4th with Orion first followed by Eton Manor and Victoria Park. We are still very much in the running for 2nd overall with just the Victoria Park race to come. Our team was led home by Dave Kunzmann in 9th and followed by Jim Arrowsmth, Ben Allen, Scott Aiken, Mark Holloway and Will Rowley to make up our scoring team. I haven’t tried to work out how our vet’s team got on but our scoring team would be Jim, Scott, Mark plus Adrian ‘Del’ Edwards, Andy Betton and Luke Bowie. As well as challenging for 2nd place overall we have a number strongly placed for individual trophies for the season with Scott Aiken and Allesio Ferrari in a strong place and the possibility of Dougal Burrowes winning the Senior prize. Let’s have a great final race on the tarmac at Victoria Park in 2 weeks. 

Chas Taylor

Women’s Team
A decent and determined team turned up to Orion’s Chingford League race on a beautiful sunny but chilly morning in Epping Forest. The narrow start was chaotic as usual with ice, mud and low-hanging branches to contend with before it opened up into the double loop including two very steep hills (which many walked up). 

Luckily despite the treacherous conditions, all our team made it home led by Kat Alpe in 5th place, followed by Anja Greenwood in 6th. Ania Sikorska had a strong run to finish in 30th place (and 4th V50). Ronnie Ley was our fourth scorer closely followed by Bev Tipping and our final scorer was Sarah de Los Rios who had a big smile on her face at the end.

Many thanks to Judy Prior who hand-knitted our Trent Park green hats which kept us lovely and toasty before and after the race. It looks like we will finish this league mid-table if we can have the promised strong team for Victoria Park on 4th February with several non-cross-country runners keen to take part in this flat race.

Anja Greenwood

Photos can be seen in Club Photo Gallery taken by Ben Allen’s girlfriend, Angelica, great job. Thanks also to our other supporters who braved the conditions.