This event covers a number of different competitions and so has a number of opportunities for success and interesting results. The weather was fairly miserable but the heavy rain waited until after the racing had finished. Both men and women had depleted teams but the men are getting into a position where they can withstand the impact a bit more than the women. It’s always nice when we are joined by the Juniors in events. The Juniors were competing in two leagues so it was interesting to see how they got on in each.

The men and women ran together in the Fraternity and Sorority Cups as well as the Chingford League. Although the men had a number of our faster runners missing they still had a decent team and good depth with 26 taking part. There were 6 to score in the Fraternity Cup as there are in the Chingford League. Our scorers were Adam Bowman, Andy Naylor, Joseph Kallow, Paul Brennan, Ben Jones and Scott Aiken. Adam and Andy finished close together in 3rd and 4th position in the Chingford League Division 1 competition and were followed by Joseph Kallow, a new and outstanding addition who is only 20, This team gave us 2nd place in the Fraternity Cup team competition, a great achievement. As usual our top runners were largely vets I’m sure we will have been right up there in the vets competition. In the A competition we finished a strong 2nd to Victoria Park and if we drop the Dagenham result which we are able to we look good to be runners up to Vicky Park at the end of the season.

The women had 12 runners, which is just enough for full A, B and C teams and they all ran strong races but were lacking some of their big scorers. The A team finished 6th with the B and C teams further down the list. With 4 scorers in the Sorority Cup and 6 in the Chingford League. The first 6 were Anja Greenwood, Mahdiyyah Banoo, Anna Sikorska, Bo Yu, Theodosia Green and Bev Tipping. As all of these, with the exception count as Vets it just needs Julie Mimnagh to be added to make up the Vets team. As with the men our current league position is not a true reflection of the situation as we will be able to drop the results when we get to the end of the season. Having said that the men are sitting at the top of the vet table even including the Dagenham result.

Our Juniors had a really good day and had repreprentation in almost all of the age categories with some storming results in some categories. This gets difficult to give a place when there are different teams in the leagues. Two things are incontrovertible and that is Robin Greenwood and Jagna Falkowska were outstanding winners in the Under 15 Boys and Girls races. Jack Davies also had a great run but had to suffer some issues when crossing the line. It will be interesting to see how they all figure in the Chingford League where our Juniors don’t normally take part.

It was a good day with silver medals for the men’s team. It was great to have some volunteers out on the course, we are very grateful for their efforts. Nikki Chodurek did a great job scoring and Sarah De Los Rios did a great job with the camera. Well done to everyone who took part and we look forward to the next race.

Chas