SEAA Men's 4x5k & Women’s 3X3.5k Cross-country Relay
Wormwood Scrubs, October 18, 2014.
So Close to Double-Tops
The SEAA point-blank refuse to market what should be a far better attended race. It’s a real shame, because this could be a terrific festival of sport. If Mansfield – a real slog to get to – is attracting 258 teams in the senior men and women’s races, the South’s paltry 48 teams at a London location, is far too low.
Some say it’s a race too many in the calendar, but it quite simply is not. The next ‘major’ test for our women is the Surrey League way in the distance (Dec 6). Hardly congestion. I hear other clubs saying they don’t go because: “ah, no-one does that one.” This is purely a failure in marketing. How can 949 athletes run in the Surrey League, but only 184 in the following week’s regional championships? Come on SEAA, you can do more!
Fab Four Please Please Me
The online entry service was riddled with bugs which meant that our superstar Phil Wicks couldn’t be entered. He was a no at the time, so the TM didn’t worry about it too much, but he then became a ‘yes’, and the SEAA refused to let him in. This had a really bad knock-on for poor Paskar. We wanted to rest him ahead of Sunday’s Cabbage Patch, a critical pay day for him. He said, “it’s fine, I can do both,” but it was a heck of an ask. PO ran too hard at the Scrubs, and then just lost out on 2nd on Sunday, which cost him £300 in winnings, and ended up in an ambulance doused in ice for his trouble. It’s a major lesson to us that we must do more to protect the jewel in our crown. PO first appeared at a global championships way back at Kuala Lumpur ’98, and he can’t go on like this.
Despite all the above, the club enjoyed a splendid day. The men dominated their race with a deadly gun-to-tape performance albeit in a field that was one notch up from dire. But Herne Hill and Bedford are both fine clubs who have doled out a whole lot of pain to the Bels over the past 15 years, so defeating them can never be taken for granted. PO romped away on the first leg to set up the skipper with a lead on 2. Maybe he’d slip to around 4th? Not a bit of it! Roy’s dedication to his running is such a pleasure to witness, and although he is no longer in the first flush of youth, his odometer is low, and he may yet keep improving for the next five years. Come on Roy – do it.
Onto Kristopher whose opening salvo for us was way back at Aldershot in ’05 as a shrub. Kris is easing up on an excellent track career and we can look forward to many telling returns from him over road and country. His run applied the anaesthetic as he stretched Roy’s 17 second gift to over a minute. “I’ll take anchor if you like,” pronounced the bullish Gus a few days out. We love the boy’s maturity and his two not-for-the-squeamish scenarios at Rushmoor and SP set him up a beauty for this. Pressure, yes, but a juicy buffer. He crushed the oppo with a ruthless outing to add another 40 seconds to the tab. Nice job lads, we can only beat who’s there, and it washes away the sadness of Happy Valley the weekend before.
1 Belgrave H 1:00:04; 2 Herne Hill H 1:01:48; 3 Bedford &C 1:01:58; … 31 teams started, 26 finished.
P Owor (1) 14:19; R Maddams (1) 15:33; K Gauson (1) 15:00; G Upton (1) 15:12.
Fastest: A Maud (Clapham C) 14:10; P Owor (Belgrave H) 14:19; G Grundy (Guildford &G) 14:38.
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Murder On The Dancefloor
The Belles got into yet another fiendish scrape that we have seen much of the last few years. The standard for this was very high compared to the men, with four clubs all going for the jugular. Kerimack looked in some pain for the last few minutes as TVH’s Murphy stole a march. But it was a tidy run and set ZLD up a treat. Zoe followed up her 12:36 last year with a 12:23. Always reliable, with not a bad run in sight a year-and-a-race into her Belles service, but there’s still more to come from the Newcy Nugget.
MW set out with much to ponder: the gap to gold was a whopping 49 seconds and TVH had Lisa da Silva to steer them home, last year’s fastest, and known to belt out 2:20 for the 800. Mel also had SLH’s McCall flying along 10 yards up the way; tiny she may be, but she is speedy. Oh, and add in Lucie Custance, 3rd in last week’s Surrey League in her wake and MW had medals of any kind to worry about, let alone gold.
But, there was something key to consider here. Was it possible that with 2nd, 3rd and 4th all trying to zap each other, that da Silva could get drawn into a war she wanted no part of? Yes! Mel’s herculean effort to squish SLH meant that LDS suddenly had trouble in her rearview mirror. da Silva was hurting and the gap was down to 10 seconds with 600 to go. Mel could do this. But, a miler’s kick does the trick and to her credit Lisa had paced it perfectly to settle the account. But what a climax, plaudits to all the leading clubs for a great race, and bouquets to Mel for the day's fastest.
We close with talk of a stunner from the Baby bees. Hardly babies – they were 7th! Catherine riposted to two defeats from Fee this term to nick one back, while Fee in turn went 1 second quicker than her memorable gold medal winning run of 2012. Rose looked very good at a distance that could just about absorb her go-out-like-a-maniac strategy; while both Genia and Alison showed they’re not far from breaking into our top teams.
** Editor's note: da Silva writes to us: "I was completely clueless that Mel was catching me until I was out of the woods"... which put her in a weird state of limbo of being out of the woods, but not out of the woods.
1 Thames Valley H 36:42; 2 Belgrave H 36:55; 3 South London H 37:07; 4 Clapham C 37:22; 5 London Heathside 37:57. 26 teams started, 22 finished.
K Mackenzie (6) 12:45; Z Doyle (3) 12:23; M Wilkins (2) 11:47. B team: C Lovegrove (7) 12:56; R O’Brien (9) 13:10; F Maycock (7) 12:58. C team: G Marek (10) 13:21; A Heydenrych (10) 13:33.
Fastest: M Wilkins (Belgrave H) 11:47; N Hothershall (London H) 11:52; 3 L Custance (Clapham C) 11:58.
