Watford Sunday League XC: Sunday 19 February

Women’s Team

It was an unseasonably warm and sunny Sunday for the Watford Sunday League XC race and there was a distinct lack of mud. These last few XC races have been tricky timing-wise as they have landed in the crucial middle section of many of our team member’s spring Marathon training blocks. This makes it difficult to fit in long runs especially with Sunday races. I was therefore most pleasantly surprised by the great turnout that we had for this race.

The start and finish points had been moved slightly from previous years meaning a longer uphill finish once up “cardiac hill” (aptly named) after the two laps of the wooded section. Anja Greenwood was our first lady home in second place followed by Kat Alpe (5th) and Alex Baird (6th). Aimee Jenner who is getting faster and faster was our 4th scorer in 11th place and our final scorer was Fiona Hathaway in 14th. Anna Sikorska, who is also constantly getting stronger was only 15 seconds behind her in 15th place. There were also great runs from Melissa O’Hare, Bev Tipping, Rosemary Bains and Jill Atkins.

In the team results our first three finishers were the first three vets so we totally smashed that one. We also clearly won the women’s team overall so it looks like we could win both categories with another strong performance in the recently-announced final race at Royston next month.

Men’s Team

The Sunday League finally returned after a 3 month gap following cancelled races at Stevenage and Royston. Conditions were much different to earlier in the season and could be described as benign. The men had a significantly depleted team. I think many decided they were due a week off after the excitement of winning two trophies last week. The course in spite of the benign conditions was still tough with an extended uphill finish which gave us a full 10k distance.

The scoring team was Dave Kunzmann, Paul Brennan, Ben Allen, Will Rowley, Dan Marriott, Robert Sikorski, Matt Bannon and David Birks. The depleted team now leaves Matt Bannon as the only ever-present this season having run all 14 league races. The scorers for the vet team were Paul, Dan, Robert and Matt. Final positions aren’t out but our own statto Paul has worked out that we finished 3rd overall, not far away from 2nd. The now rescheduled Royston race takes on an important role. I am assuming that with four races completed there will be individual and team trophies on offer.

Thanks to Chris and Lia for doing the scoring with valuable help from the Greenwood boys, Lawrence and Robin, and Issy Marriott. Special thanks to Dawn for taking the camera, the results of which are up on the Club’s Photo Gallery. Dawn also dished out Triffic Trail flyers. Finally thanks are due to our great supporters.

Anja Greenwood and Chas Taylor