Chingford League Race Three incorporating the Club Cross Country Championships and the Fraternity & Sorority Cups
Saturday 23rd November saw our home fixture at Trent Park in the Chingford League as well as our Club XC Champs and the Club’s Fraternity & Sorority Cups. It was a triumph for the Club.
First and foremost, huge thanks are due to Rob Scott, Martyn Rowe and the many timekeepers, marshals and volunteers who made it possible for the rest of us to ‘enjoy’ such a great race. Special thanks are also due from me to Piji Hart whose invaluable help on the day made my life so much easier. It was a fantastic new course too and we particularly appreciated the inclusion of a stream for us to ‘wash’ the plentiful mud off our shoes. We ran through grass fields and woods, up and down hills, and it was slippery in parts; in other words proper cross country! In terms of weather Storm Bert didn’t prove too challenging, although it was blustery, and the rain held off fortunately.
In the race itself our men were led home by our fantastic men’s athlete of the year, Alex Horton, who won the Division One contest with a magnificent run closely followed by Joe Ward, one of our brilliant U20s. We had several of our terrific U20s racing; Noah Clarke was our 4th finisher, Harrison Lee our 10th finisher and Callum Sydenham our 12th finisher although sadly Louie Samuels was a DNF and we wish him well. The future is looking very bright! It was great to see James McCormick, Mike Walker and Michael Martin racing and they had great runs as did Dave Byrne and Sarhan Rahman.
In the women’s race Karen Murphy, our superb women’s athlete of the year, led our team home followed by Jo Kent and Kath March both of whom performed to their usual high standards. Annabelle White and Ciara McHugh had fine runs too and it was great to see Sarah Moffatt racing again. Ann Phillips, one of a number of Stags who fell on the day, showed true grit and finished strongly while Anneli Sydenham demonstrated she is returning to form after illness.
We had two new members, Chloe Marshall and Dan Ward, making their Club Debuts after long absences from cross country racing (30 years in Chloe’s case and 20 years in Dan’s case) but absence obviously makes the heart grow fonder because they were both superb and Chloe even scored for the team.
Also one of sport’s longest rivalries witnessed an upset on the day, when Kirsty Johnstone triumphed over her husband Des Michael after 30 years of competition between them, although perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised given Kirsty’s outstanding form this year.
Once again numbers competing were up on the previous year (a fantastic 51 Stags started the race) which combined with the large numbers of members volunteering in some capacity goes to show why Barnet & District AC are the envy of so many other Clubs.
In the Fraternity & Sorority Cups against very strong opposition not only did our men finish 3rd and our women 5th but we also fielded five complete teams in both contests; no club had more teams than us!
Our Club Cross Country Champions are:
Senior Men, Alex Horton
Vets Men, Will Morris
Senior Women, Karen Murphy
Vets Women, Jo Kent
Huge congratulations to them!