A BIG WIN FOR SOPHIE AT THE PRIORY

The first race of the Surrey ladies league was in the beautiful setting of the Priory Park, Reigate and those who made the rather difficult journey were treated to an emphatic win by Sophie Harris and good performances throughout a rather sparse team.

With total numbers in the league now often exceeding 450, it was, at last, agreed to hold the two divisional races at separate times at the same venue, with young athletes races between. At Reigate thus meant the Belle's division 1 match starting at the early time of 11.00am.

However, it was a warm dry day, the grass was dry, and the park was looking at its most attractive with its background of Autumn trees.

         Sophie on the home straight

The course consisted of a short lap of about 2km followed by the full 4km second lap and Sophie sensibly decided to sit with the leading bunch on the first lap which included past winners, Steph McCall, Alex Brown, plus Julia Tomczak of SLH, Stephanie Davies newly of Clapham Chasers plus Belles own Saron Haileselase feeling very comfortable at that pace.

However, coming into the playing fields at the end of the first lap Saron had to briefly stop suffering from a very painful stitch (the same affected Nick Goolab in the men's race later in the day). Then,  Steph McCall and Alex Brown both dropped out suffering from breathing problems and Sophie made her break from the remaining leading group coming up the hill before entering the path around the woods.

She then just ran away from the rest, came into the final playing fields alone and finished almost 200m clear for her first ever cross country win. Having dropped back to about 25th place when passing Bill Laws at the border of the woods, Saron then ran like we know she can and passed runner after runner finishing in an amazing 12th place after having to stop at least twice.

Next, finding the hilly course very tough but chasing hard all the way came Katie-Ellen French in the low 30's followed by 2.06,  an 800m runner from Holland Lara Nicod making her very welcome debut. Then in quick succession, Felicity Cole, newly married Gemma Farrell and not far behind in possibly her best ever race, team captain Megan Bailey (also recently married) who ran herself to exhaustion. Welcome too, to Natalie Broad a 100m sprinter who came with Felicity and did herself credit by getting around this very difficult course.

The Belle's A team finished a respectable 7th out of 30 teams, less than a hundred points from the lead with three races still to come.  The incomplete B team had to take 2 x 252 penalty points to go with the three who came and scored. However, those three do score heavily for the B team competition which goes on all season.

 Photo Credit: Bill Laws" The Mass Start"  -Sophie moving her way up the field at the start

RESULTS

1. S. Harris 22.52, 2. S. Davies (CC) 23.19,  3. J. Tomczak (SLH) 23.21,      12 S. Haileselase 25.19, 32. K-E. French 26.38,  59. S. Nicod 27.58,  67. F. Cole 28.11,  73, G. Farrell 28.26,  84. M. James 29.09,  221. N. Broad 36.54.