Women's London cross-country Champs, Parliament Hill, 18 Nov 2017
SARON AND THE BELLES TEAM BOTH 6TH
An excellent 6th place run by Saron Haileselase, a mere seven seconds behind the winner, led a small but enthusiastic team of Belles to a fine 6th place in the London Championships. In fact five started the race but unfortunately Megan James was very disappointed to pull out after the first lap after trying unsuccessfully to overcome a hamstring strain. It was typically plucky of Megan to even start the race.
These championships have proved quite popular with the Belles over the last few years, giving the opportunity to taste part of the course which will be used for the National in February next year. Normally the conditions are a little kinder in November than in February, but the small team were greeted with an ever increasing cold drizzle as they arrived for the race which made the course with its notorious hills rather tricky.
Saron is a 1500m track athlete who dislikes the mud, the hills and the cold, but she has raced in all of the Autumn road and cross country fixtures, getting fitter and stronger with each one. She ran a very determined race, working hard on the uphill sections and flying on the downhill. She just lost out for 5th place in the long run in for home.
Mhairi Hall and Iona Cousland ran the whole race in sight of each other, but on the final lap Mhairi, having now overcome a persistent calf injury and racing better and better, managed to move through the field and finish five places in front of Iona who perhaps found the 6km race a little short.
Another runner quickly returning to fitness is Felicity Cole, still a little short of endurance, but a tough athlete and she used her experience and finished in 56th place only about half a minute behind Iona.
1 S Davis (CC) 20:24; ... 6 S Haileselase 21:29; 35 M Hall 23:45; 40 I Cousland 23:57; 56 F Cole 24:32. 275 finished
1 London Heathside 50; HHH 76; 3 VPTH 91;.... 6 Belgrave H 137. 26 teams closed in. Men:1 K Abdullahi (Hillingdon) 33:20; 40 A Fyfe 37:03; 42 G Lee 37:07; 158 W Cockerell 41:17. 490 finished