Junior’s Team Report

We had 26 juniors brave the wind and rain to compete at Welwyn in the Met League on Saturday. An excellent turnout given the conditions and we were rewarded with some great performances. Jack Davies came home 9th in the 9-year-old runners’ section, Robin Greenwood was 8th in the under-13 boys and Isabella Marriott, Aimee Porter and Jagna Falkowska stormed in together in 7th 8th and 9th respectively in the Under 13 girl’s race.

In the team’s competition, it was the Under 13 girls again who lead the way – finishing 1st on the day and managing to claw back the 3 points they were behind Woodford Green in the league. Both clubs now sit in joint first place at the top of the table and go into the final fixture of the season at Trent Park on the 11th of February with everything to play for. Frustratingly the U15/U17 boy’s course was 2km short which disrupted pacing and lead to much disappointment. Many thanks to everyone who took part, we are proud of you.

Women’s Team Report

Tough conditions greeted us at Welwyn with recent rain causing many areas of thick, sticky, energy-sapping mud. Despite this, we had our best turnout yet this season with ten women running for us.

Alex was the first woman home with a strong run after a recent illness to finish in 40th place. The second was Anja (44th) followed by Aimee (83rd), Poppy (85th), Melissa (114th) and our final scorer was Sue Thomas in 122nd place. The latter two actually missed the start of the women’s race but were luckily allowed to run in the men’s race and could still score for us.

We were backed up by a great team of Sarah, Ronnie, Lia and Bev (for whom this was her first-ever Met League race).

So finally with a scoring team, we did a lot better than in previous races but need the strongest possible turnout for the last race at Trent Park next month for any chance of avoiding relegation next season.

Men’s Team Report

It was a very wet and muddy day at Stanborough Park in Welwyn on Saturday for the latest race in the Met League. We had 24 men turn up in those conditions which is a very positive sign for the Club and did the guys deliver. The A team stormed away to win division 2 on the day and consolidated their position at the top of the table for the season. The ten runners to score were Alessio Ferrari, Jim Arrowsmith, Dave Kunzmann, Paul Brennan, Scott Aiken, Ben Allen, Francis Mannion, Mark Holloway, Steve Moss and Adrian ‘Del’ Edwards. The next 8 made up the B team who had a great day in division 3.

As well as this great performance, In some ways, an even better result was the vets winning that competition for the whole league and currently sit at the top of the pile. The scoring vets were Jim, Paul, Scott, Francis, Mark and Steve. The vets B team also had a great day. So we go into the final race at Trent Park on Saturday 11th February looking for another great day and a brilliant finish to the season.

Special thanks are due to Paul Hart for undertaking the Team Manager duties as well as preparing and cheering all the Juniors and finishing the Senior race limping after a mishap. Paul was ably supported by Andrew Dench. Also thanks to Alex Brennan for taking the camera for the men’s race. Special thanks to Jan Bowman for allowing Melissa O’Hare and Sue Thomas to run with the Men and score for the Ladies’ team. Final thanks to those who turned up in that weather to support us, especially Paul Bracken’s parents who turn up at nearly every race.

Paul Hart, Anja Greenwood and Chas Taylor