MWL Race 3 2023: Trent Park, 8th June 2023

What a great night we had on Thursday at the latest Midweek League race. Before launching into the race reports, congratulations to Will Rowley, in his first outing as Race Director, and his key lieutenants Marcus De Freitas, Brian Bowie, James Joy and Chas Taylor for a great event.

We had 80 runners completing the race with some great performances. We also had around 50 volunteers doing a wide range of tasks and showing what a great welcoming club we are. We are very grateful for everyone coming forward and giving up their time, it is very much appreciated.

We laid on a superb feast for all the runners who came back to the Hockey Centre after the race. Well done everyone for making their contributions and special thanks to Tash, her mum and the team for managing the feeding process.

The evening largely went very well apart from managing to get a coach jammed in the entrance to the Hockey Centre car park causing massive congestion up Snakes Lane. Last week it was congestion on the M25, this week Snakes Lane. I will not be accepting requests to park a bus at the Hockey Centre again!

We also managed to make the course a little over distance. The course is so easy we thought the runners would appreciate a few hundred extra metres to run. Sorry we’ll get it right next year.

Photos from the race are up on the club’s Photo Gallery. I was a bit stressed before the start of the race and didn’t manage to ask anyone to take the camera so just took a few after I had finished but they have been superbly supplemented by those taken by Lia Prado on her phone. Thanks Lia for a superb job.

Now we have to do it all again at the Triffic Trail on Sunday (18th). If you haven’t entered or volunteered please do asap. Your Club needs you…again.

Men’s Team

The home Midweek League race took place at Trent Park on Thursday and we had a great turnout with 46 finishers for the men. The first two races hadn’t gone brilliantly for us and we were largely out of contention for top honours for the season but this was our opportunity to make up ground, and we did.

Our A team finished 2nd on the night and sit 3rd for the season, still with a shot at 2nd. Our scoring team on Thursday was Jimmy Barber, Charlie Bruce, Luke Barker, Matt Hogsden, Scott Aiken, Jim Arrowsmith, Paul Brennan, Ed Rios, Carl Redondo, Dave Kunzmann, Ben Allen and Ben Halstead. Our vets team also did very well finishing 2nd and lie 3rd for the season. Our scorers were Charlie, Scott, Jim, Paul, Ed and Carl.

With 46 runners in total plus 2 DNFs we were very close to having 4 full teams out there. Our B, C and what would have been a D team all did brilliantly. Well done to all of our runners, it was great being part of such a committed team. We now have a 4 week break until the final scoring race at Stevenage on Thursday 6th July. Let’s have another super race with a big turnout.

Women’s Team

On Thursday our women’s team turned out in force for our home race in Trent Park. A hot night made for tough conditions, especially on the route’s many hills, but our women more than rose to the challenge.

Our first TP woman home, and 6th overall was Alex Baird (42:14), closely followed by Kat Alpe (10th), Anja Greenwood (15th), Cara Huckstep (20th), Poppy Allwright (24th and 1st U20), Nicole Hobbs (32nd), Emily Clarke (33rd) and Zoe Redondo (34th) to complete the scoring team.

They were brilliantly supported from a huge turnout of women across the seniors and vets. We were narrowly beaten into third place overall on the night, but the Vets team comfortably came top. After 3 races, we are sitting in 4th place overall, which seems a shame given how much effort all our runners have put in, but we still have one more scoring race to move up the table. It’s a different story for our Vets, who are sitting proudly at the top of the table.

Thanks and congratulations to all our runners and see you in Stevenage!

Chas Taylor and Emily Clarke