Bels Win Absorbing Struggle

With our Rosenheim lads grimly hanging onto their lead at the top of the table 12 miles away in Croydon, our local "wombles" ventured across the Common to Paskar's glorious patch in Roehampton.  We’ve had an uneven presence at this flourishing race with a couple of close runners-up spots in 2002 and 2010, two wins in 2004 and 2006, but little else to speak of, and this was our first appearance in six years.  The race has grown from 64 to 100 teams (men and women) in our absence.We kicked off with debutant Tommy Ashby whose brief was to stick with a front-loading Thames in the form of Matt Jones as close as he could.  Tommy is better known as a 4/8 man, but he’s moving up in distance and did a brilliant job by handing over to Paskar just two seconds down.This actually played into Thames’ hands as the redoubtable Gordon Pearce was able to feed off the Lion for the entire tour and handed over to James McMullan 'only' 32 seconds in arrears.James then set about me with ferocious intent and had wiped out my lead after just 5 minutes.  We were in trouble.  But now the hunter became the hunted and I knew if I could limit the deficit to around 30 seconds we should still be alright with the skipper to come.Actually James had over-cooked it big time in that first mile and it was only 11 seconds which Gus had to make up over a very fit Simon Molden.  A 5:02 mile brought Gus within striking distance and they were together before the climb at half-way when Gus pushed on hard up the hill.  He’s a great downhill runner too, so that by the time the last 500 yards was entered, the lead was 20 seconds and still growing.Super race though!1 Belgrave H 57:55; 2 Thames H&H 58:21; 3 Nottingham Old Boys 59:55.T Ashby (2) 14:28; P Owor (1) 13:57; W Cockerell (2) 15:18; G Upton (1) 14:11.Fastest:  P Owor 13:57; G Upton 14:09; M Jones (TH&H) 14:26.