Juniors Surrey League, Match 3, Mitcham Common and Lloyd Park, Saturday 14th January 2017

With the forecast bright sunshine obviously another product of the Met Office's twisted take on humour, and depleted squads at both the Girls races at Lloyd Park and the Boys race at Mitcham Common, those Belgrave Juniors who did manage to turn out in the cold rain acquitted themselves well.Amidst protestations of injuries at Mitcham Common, and despite Sam's Coach (AKA me) briefly losing one of his spikes before a scramble to find it (in my defence, I am old and I get flustered easily), our five Boys shrugged off adversity (but left on copious quantities of clothing) to tackle the muddy and deceptively hilly 4k course. First home, despite a slow start, was Zayd Addicott in 32nd place (13th U15), followed by Julius Bennet in 55th place (28th U15) who ran well, having spent the last four weeks hidden from daylight and human contact prepping for and undertaking exams.Our next runner home was Sam Pound, who, having ignored a sore achilles before the gun, had his best run to date, coming home in 58th place (15th U13) only 8 seconds behind Julius and a huge 27th places higher than his previous race at Lloyd Park and up from 28th to 14th U13 - his best race to date by some margin. Not far behind Sam was Henry Shippey, another one of our walking wounded, who hobbled off afterwards with a pained expression (no-one can do pained expressions as well as Henry) and a calf strain after closing in to place 80th (25th U13).With the ever positive Hector Sheppard rounding off our Boys U13 team placings in 96th place (37th U13), the U13 Boys did well to finish 8th team with only 3 runners. An equally solid team performance came from the U15/17's, who managed an 11th placing with only two runners. Oh the pleasure we will all experience when we finally manage to get full teams out for both age categories, hopefully at the final match on February 11th on Wimbledon Common. There is every chance we could come very close to winning the U13 boys team race and secure a top three slot for the U15 Boys. Which would be a marvellous springboard for next season.Meanwhile, elsewhere in Surrey, the Junior Girls turned out in rain mixed  with the occasional sleet showers falling (who says cross country isn't glamorous?), not to mention the remnants of last week’s snow still on the ground in patches at Lloyd Park, Croydon.Whilst Juliet had been at the Middlesex Championships the week before at Hillingdon, for Dauphine, Allison and Chaiyla it was a case of Groundhog Day as all three Belgrave athletes had run the same course that day at the Surrey Championships, so there was no excuse for getting lost and a good chance to improve on last week’s times.There were excellent performances from all four athletes, particularly from Chaiyla working her way through the field. She continues to improve her running in every race she does and her smile at the finish is great to see. For Juliet, it was the chance to demonstrate the good form she has been showing in training.Allison and Dauphine both improved on last week’s times by over a minute, despite the cold conditions. Results were: U15: Dauphine Rolin: 37 in 19.18, Allison Dalgleish: 42 in 20.57. U13: Juliet Michot: 38 in 13.17, Chaila Norville-Williams: 55 in 14.39