Met League Race 5 Report - Trent Park
Man running in Trent Park on churned up mud with trees in background
Where once there was grass...
Our club hosted the final Met League race of the season on 10 February at Trent Park. Although the day was fine, the rain over previous days meant runners had a lot of mud and a full stream to get through.
Charlotte Harris (42nd place out of 182, in a time of 36:10) led Barnet home once again, distancing herself from our experienced senior women early on as the athletes lapped the quagmire of the showground field, that had by now been churned up by all the junior races. But it was the fight and determination of all our top 6 scorers that gave our senior women the points needed to stay in Division One.
Our women’s team has relied on Karen Murphy (68th, 38:24) and Jo Kent (79th, 39:54) over the years, and Jana Jilkova (88th, 40:50) has been a consistent scorer through the season. But a special mention to young athlete Florence Humphrey (95th, 41:32) who has consistently improved in the Met League this year and a barnstorming run by Sarah Ralphs (97th, 41:37) gave her the honour of notching up some very valuable points for the club.
All our women’s team performed admirably in very difficult conditions underfoot, comprised of Kathryn Ellis, Sarah Moffat, Davina Gutteridge, Ann Phillips, Amanda Violet, Linda Dworowski, Geraldine Stapleton, and Mary Brown.
As is now customary, Callum and Noah raced at the front from the gun but the returning Ed Spencer (57th place out of 396, in a time of 31:31) stole the show on the day he was presented with the men’s Vets cross country champion shield. In a winter season occasionally interrupted by niggling injuries Callum Sydenham (62nd, 30:38) had an incredible race and marked the first Young Athlete to finish in the Top 100 of a men’s senior race this year. Alex Horton (105th, 32:08) ran with strength to come home as the third senior men.
Our top ten scorers were made up by Noah Clarke, Tom Thain, Michael Walker (great to have two familiar faces back in the mud), Will Cooper, Paul Bassa, Sarhan Rahman (on his debut!) and Costa Michael.
We had a big men’s squad at our home race and all these contributed immensely: Kelvin K, Paul C, Nick Scott (mixing it with the faster men), Nico M, Kevin V, Pete E, Grahame Davies (a fantastic season), Andy S, Mark G, Richard M, Mario P, Rob S, Jerry B, Chris V and Dinesh Kadam (debut).
End of season review
The story of the season is how magnificently our Under 20 athletes have made the transition from running 4km junior races in fields of 30-70 runners to mixing it with hundreds of seniors across tough 8km courses.
Not only were they often our first athletes home at each meeting, they were placed high in the League’s individual rankings (based on points from their best 4 of the 5 races). They also stood proudly on the front row of every race representing our club vest against some of the fastest athletes in London.
Charlotte Harris 19th, Joe Ward 65th, Emma McCluskey 23rd, Noah Clarke 71st, Florence Humphrey 64th, Callum Sydenham 74th out of 391 women and over 828 men.
Fourteen people turned out for the club in all 5 races although Charlotte and Callum each had to pull up through illness/injury in one race; Ann Phillips, Chris Violet, Charlotte Harris, Callum Sydenham, Florence Humphrey, Grahame Davies, Geraldine Stapleton, Jerry Bryan, Jana Jilkova, Kevin Valaydon, Kathryn Ellis, Noah Clarke, Mary Brown and Peter Ellis.
Our women’s team were promoted at the end of last season into Division One and it was always going to be tough keeping that place. Our small squad battled hard to keep us just ahead of Ealing, Southall & Middlesex by 632 points to their 616 who go down, along with Woodford Green & Essex Ladies’ 507.
The men did well in Division Two, in which 10 athletes score points for the team, ending up comfortable in the middle of the 13 team division.
All the Met League results can be found on the league website: https://metleague.run/results/ and lots of photos are on their Facebook/Instagram pages.