Belgrave teams strengthened their grip on 1st (women) and 2nd (men) in a day of high-quality racing on a technical course on Wimbledon Common.

The Thames Hare and Hounds course at the home of cross country is one of the toughest on the circuit and includes the notorious 'Butts' where the army trained WWI troops to prepare them for the horrors of the trenches. Even after a relatively dry week, the mud in parts was almost ankle deep.

Women

Report by Charlie Dickinson

Although beaten for first place by a very strong Clapham Chasers team, the Belles A-team maintained their overall league lead after two matches. On top of that the B-team came 8th of all the A and B teams on the day, easily leading the B team competition.

The Belles As had three of the five scorers from the last race missing with bad colds but with the strength in depth the team now has, they still finished well ahead of the third-placed team and after two matches have a lead of 129 points over Guildford.

There was a welcome return from Rachel Brown, our most consistent scorer from two years ago. She led the team home in 9th place, outsprinting a past winner in Steph McCall in the home straight. Grace Richardson was next, finding the course far more difficult than the last race in Richmond Park, but still finishing well. She was just ahead of Patricia Walker, an outstanding new member in only her second cross country race since she was at school. Patricia managed to work through the field passing dozens of runners. Next, in the early twenties, came Olivia Papaioannou and Steph Hewitt, both finding the course hard but finishing well to complete the A team.

Then came the Belles 'engine room', all finishing higher than in the last race, Ella-May by no less than thirty places. These runners are so important for the team. They not only contribute to the B team score, but help our A team by finishing ahead of A team athletes from other clubs. Jess Saunders finished next in 27th with Ella-May, Alix Vermeulen and Mimi Corden-LLoyd all packing closely in the mid-thirties. Laura Goodson was just behind them in 45th.

The Belles kept coming with Lydia Gallyer-Barnett, Sarah Dewhirst and Lizzie Goldie-Scot, again all improving on their positions from the first race, then Jane Maciver and Jurgita Levertavicuite in their first league race within the top hundred and Emily Bannister just outside.

It was so good to see new runners, Carmen Cabrera Arnau (who said she loved it!) and Laura Shrimpton running for the team and a very welcome return by Jennifer Beecroft after a few years away. The Belles had 19 runners In a field of 279 finishing in the race.

Results

Teams: 1. Clapham Chasers 49, 2. Belgrave 'A' 84, 3.Stragglers 152, ... 8. Belgrave 'B' 181.

After two matches: 1. Belgrave 'A' 150, 2. G&G 279, 3. THH 302, 4. Clapham Chasers 315, 5. Belgrave 'B' 335.

Individual: 1. O. Matthews (CC), 22:19, 2. R. Wolfe (THH), 22:31, 3. C. Baxter (G&G), 9. R. Brown 23:16, 14. G. Richardson 23:33, 16. P. Walker 23:47, 22. O. Papaioannou 24:23, 23. S. Hewitt 24:28, 27. J. Saunder, 24:39, 35. E-M. Hards, 24:54, 36. A. Vermeulen 24:54, M. Corden-LLoyd, 24:58, 45. L. Goodson 25:28, 48. L. Gallyer-Barnett, 25:30, 57. S. Dewhirst, 25:46, 62. L. Goldie-Scot 25:53, 93. J. Maciver 27:03, 96. J. Levertavicuite 27:06, 128. E. Bannister 28:17, 175. C. Cabera Arnau 30:03, 182. L. Shrimpton 30:16, 249. J. Beecroft 35:00.

Detailed results follow the men’s report below

Photos of women’s race by Steve Gardner; Neil Wilson photographed the men’s race.

Men

Report by Steve Gardner

The men went into this fixture with a mixture of excitement and trepidation: our biggest squad since 1968 (citation needed) included some classy names making their debut on the cross, but also scorers 2 and 3 missing from Richmond Park, plus Conall’s “this course’ll break yer ankles like” scaremongering ringing in the ears.

To the race. We’d been eager to see how Sam Gebreselassie’s road and track brilliance would convert to the Surrey League ever since his 14:28 5000m debut earlier this year. Today we’d get the first part of our answer.

In his own words: “I was quite hopeful going into this, having recce’d the course multiple times last week but my over-ambition, low weekly mileage recently and late nights this week caught me out. I may not have made the top 30 despite leading the race at times but I’m still hopeful and faithful for what’s in store.”

Sam would finish 4th Bel and 34th overall after a painful second lap, and last month’s race winner Dylan Evans (59, just behind Sam in this photo) would be our first man home, a hard fought second place eventually bested by Andy Coley-Maud (216) who was particularly at home on this course. Dylan has been a stunning addition to our Surrey League league squad: a fierce racer and an upbeat presence in the warmup, he’s on course to finish as the league’s top scorer if he can repeat his performance in the final two fixtures.

Phil Wicks was our next man home in 15th, some 14 years after he won on the same course. We sensed disappointment from Phil after his southern relays run in September but the club legend was in fine form on this terrain, and emerged keen as you like for another go next weekend at the South of the Thames 5-miler.

Third man in was Reece Edwards, just three weeks after a 2:13:21 PB at Rotterdam marathon. With three quick road marathons and countless flat laps of Battersea Park under his belt this year, this jolty, hilly, rocky, muddy, stoney, grassy circuit was a baptism of fire for an Australian yet to run cross country in Britain. His 23rd here was a valuable contribution to the team score even if it doesn’t quite do his road form justice. But we think he quite enjoyed it all the same.

Next in was Craig Ruddy, another road marathon specialist but much more seasoned on this surface. His 36th was 10 places lower than at Richmond Park but that was a reflection of the deeper field rather than Craig’s performance. Just 10 seconds back was Callum Stewart, continuing his gradual recovery from a hamstring problem with a really promising run on a course of which he was not fond.

Then to our souped-up engine room to round out the scoring ten. Last month it went McNally-Lamb-Scott-Buckle-Taylor. This time a delighted Jonny Scott leapfrogged his pack with Conall McNally, again not overly enamoured with the course, six seconds back. With an under-the-weather Nick Buckle suffering a severe second-lap fade, it was Angus Lamb who’d come in next, outsprinting Tommy Taylor after a race-long duel.

It’s a sign of how far we’ve come in terms of depth of quality that Buckle and Michael McCarthy - our first finisher at the national last year - could both have stinkers without the team score suffering at all.

Promising newcomer James Fox was an unfortunate DNF with a turned ankle after lap 1; at the time he was tracking Craig Ruddy and starting to move through bodies. It looks like that affliction may have cost us around 30 points.

But those finishing ten left us in a creditable third, 42 points behind a transformed Guildford side but crucially another 23 ahead of Kent to extend the gap between second and third in the table to 49 points. We’ll have to repeat the same squad strength in the final two fixtures if we want to hold on to that silver medal.

It’s another demonstration of our depth that second set of ten scorers would also finish 2nd ‘B’ team on the day. Jonny Neville was again 11th scorer, but this time only 9s behind Tommy Taylor compared to a full minute’s delta at Richmond Park.

Then came debutant Toby Fletcher with a well-paced run; your TM passed him at the start of lap 2, only to be caught again before Toby’s quick finish saw him finish 15s better off. He was quickly followed by the welcome return of Matt Edgar, making his first club appearance after a year living in Canada. Next in was your correspondent Steve Gardner, who enjoyed this 14th score much more than the same feat at Richmond Park last month.

The quickly-improving AJ Elsadig was next; he reduced his gap from the scoring ten from 81 seconds at Richmond to just 38 seconds this time. It won’t be long till he’s a regular on the Taylor-McNally train.

Another debutant Jens van den Brande was next with a strong run off very limited weekly mileage. He’s another who should be bothering the scoring ten with more consistency in training.

Nick Buckle and Michael McCarthy then followed; two quality cross runners who’d normally been ten scoring positions higher than this but both weren’t feeling 100%. But it’s thanks to their decision to turn out rather than stay in bed that our B-team finished as high as second on the day.

Another debutant Tom Lole and stalwart Ben Hurley, also suffering from flu midweek but still turning out for the club, completed the B scorers.

Sean Tuffy was the 21st Bel home in his first cross race wearing claret and gold, followed by Ewan Somerville, a quality road runner whose lack of spikes in this race cost him at least 50 if not 70 places. Juan Carlos Casal, Valentin Rigori, Will Cockerell and Zac Cannon, another Bels debutant, were not far behind. Patrick McDougall and Adam Roeder were next 27th and 28th Bels respectively, while veterans Alex Luce and Rob Norville made it 29 and 30. Marathoners James Morris and Dylan Mitchard both had a tough day on a course antithetical to their preferred terrain, but made it round nonetheless to make it a hugely impressive 32 total finishers in claret and gold.

A superb team performance on a tough day of racing - but it’ll all be for nought if we don’t carry the momentum in January’s fixture on Mitcham Common. We go again!

Full results follow the gallery.

Results