We turned up Eastbrookend Country Park in Dagenham for the 2nd Chingford League race of the season. It drizzled with rain all the way there on a day the forecasters promised would be a dry day making choice of footwear an interesting debate. We had very limited resources partly because of a number of external races taking place this weekend and the vista of our own Sunday League race at Trent Park the following day.

The course was more or less flat with a few small elevations and a number of pinch points giving those of us further down the field a bit of welcome respite. The surface was varied but there was probably more paths and tarmac than soft ground so I think road shoes were the better choice.

We had 11 men and 7 women take it on and with 6 to score in each category for men and women we didn’t have much room to cover problems. The scoring team for the men was Matt Hogsden, Ben Allen, Dave Kunzmann, Paul Ward, Robert Sikorski and Nathaniel Sampson. The 7 women were brilliant, they all ran again on Sunday, six of them in the Sunday League race and Alex Baird in a tough half marathon. Kat Alpe, who is still recovering from her bike accident last week went off to run in another cross country on Saturday afternoon as well as the Trent Park race on Sunday. Our scorers were Alex Baird, Anja Greenwood, Kat Alpe, Anna Sikorska, Theodosia Green and Julie Mimnagh. I was going to say all of our women were Vets forgetting that in this league Kat doesn’t qualify as a Vet, not quite 40 yet so she was replaced in our Vet team by Jo Allen so all 7 of our ladies scored for the Club. The men’s Vet team consisted of Paul, Robert, John Rose, Matt Bannon, Stuart Manktelow and Mick Green. This left Chas Taylor as the only non-scorer on the day.

Final results haven’t been published yet but I expect us to end up mid-table in all the categories. The next Chingford League race will be the Fraternity & Sorority Cup race in Trent Park and hopefully we can have a big turnout and score big.

Chas