Heathside's alphas in fraternity success
Heathside’s near domination of the North London cross country scene continued apace this week, though this time out at the Fraternity Cup it was a couple of individual results that stood out most as James Wooldridge and Adam Kirk-Smith captured a fantastic 1-2 in the men’s race. The women weren’t far behind though, led home by Rebecca Bunting making a welcome return to Heathside colours. More on the Trent Park races from Captain Chris shortly.
Elsewhere, Heathside vests were spotted in races at Hatfield, Milton Keynes and Hyde Park, while Jim Connell took our rivalry with Highgate as far as Florence and Jonathan Litchfield and Jessica Vinluan went all the way to Virginia and all they brought us back were a couple of PBs.
Now over to Captain Chris to kick off the reports:
Fraternity and Sorority Cups
The welcoming Barnet & District AC - and the beautiful Trent Park - played hosts to the Fraternity and Sorority Cups again this year, on a mild, blustery day that saw the old course as heavy underfoot as ever. 43 hardy Heathsiders took to the muddy trail in the spirit of fraternity that has marked this grand old race since it was first run in the 1930s. Following a series of team triumphs for Heathside over recent weeks, the emphasis at Trent Park was on some outstanding individual performances.
Men and Women raced together over an 8km course that had a bit of everything for the cross-country afficionado - flat, open fields, mud, slippery turns, hills, woods, and a boggy run-in that seemed to last forever. Over 200 competitors set off on the two lap course. Twenty seven minutes later, James Wooldridge was the first to cross the finish line, completing his first race win as a Heathside Senior, just two seconds ahead of Adam Kirk-Smith. James has graduated from Heathside’s Junior to Senior ranks with aplomb over the last year or so, and is turning into a fine Senior athlete of both track and cross-country. His success is testimony to both his dedication to his sport and club, and the commitment of his coaches. Heathside is rightly proud of James’s achievements, not least because we hope he will carry on in the same manner for many years to come! Meanwhile, Adam Kirk-Smith is barely a month back from a nasty cycling injury that kept him from running for many weeks. To be performing at this level so soon after his return to cross-country is very impressive indeed. Gentlemen, it was a privilege to compete alongside you. Well, I was alongside you on the start line, at least.
In the team competition, Heathside’s A-team came second, narrowly relinquishing their title from last year to Barnet & District. Our six scorers were James, Adam, Charles Hardy (7th), Jonathan Hopkin (20th), John Flahive (22nd), and Rajiv Ratan (28th). Well done, men! Heathside’s B-team finished 8th, a very creditable effort.
Amongst the Women, it was a pleasure to see Rebecca Bunting back on the trail at last. Rebecca wasted no time in taking her place at the front of Heathside’s female contingent, finishing fourth, ahead of Cas Wright in fifth. Having run Kabir’s famous roller-coaster on Thursday night, Cas was preparing for the Met League at Wormwood Scrubs on 5th December, and ran exceptionally well on tired legs. Satu Hietanen and Elizabeth Beard made up the third and fourth scorers for the Women’s A-team, which finished second, narrowly behind double champions Barnet & District. Excellent effort!
Let’s come back next year and reclaim the double crown we last won in 2013.
Meanwhile, it’s on to the Met League at Wormwood Scrubs on Saturday 5th December! COYH!!
Finally, a big Heathside farewell to Ollie Pound, who, with Vicky Pound, has graced so many cross-country races over recent years, always in the Heathside colours, and (nearly) always with a smile on his face. Ollie put in his usual shift at Trent Park, with Hasan, Jesper and Co., to finish 121st on his final outing: proper Heathside. Good luck in bonnie Scotland, Mr and Mrs Pound. Hope to see you down south on your holidays before too long!
Chris Hartley
Hatfield 5 miles
A slightly downcast sounding Ed Samuel reported back from gloomy Hatfield: ‘a miserable morning for racing with strong winds, but thankfully the rain stayed away. The Hatfield 5 is well organised and the course is flat with plenty of turns. Both Ben Wolfe and myself were hoping to run quite a bit faster but were satisfied considering the conditions’. Checking the results it looks like a PB for both so definitely reason to be satisfied, I’d say.
Turkey Trot 5k, Virginia
Leaving the awful weather behind were Jonathan Litchfield and Jessica Vinluan, who spent Thanksgiving Stateside and gobbled up a couple of great times while they were there: ‘On a flat course in perfect conditions - cold, but bright and still - we raced against locals dressed as Pilgrims, Native Americans, Turkeys, Snowmen and Donuts, and walked away with PBs, or PRs as they say on this side of the Atlantic, plus some age-category prize swag.’ Jonathan Litchfield
Florence Marathon
Marathon Man Jim Connell took his running Aviators to Italy and sent us this postcard: 'I had a decent 3.06 at Florence Marathon on Sunday on "not fresh legs" to round off a good year of races for me with running marathons as the main focus. The conditions were perfect, Florence is beautiful. The course is great, slightly chaotic at the beginning and I got off to a slow start, but then got into the groove. I struggled late on, Dan Madams warned me about the bumpy stone paving in the last few miles and it took it's toll on the legs. Despite that I had a good negative split and I recommend it as a bucket list race. I tried to take down my pal from H*ghgate H*rriers in The Battle of North London, but he's just too darn fast, so instead I took him down the pub afterwards for post race recovery ales .... time for a proper break before I fire it all up again for my 2017 marathon mischief!
Serpentine Last Friday of the Month 5k, Hyde Park
Chris Shipley let us know of the 5 (or possibly 6 – Alun Nash apparently ran but is mysteriously absent from the results) Heathsiders who tackled the ever popular Serpentine event. Reporting that it was ‘windy and on the more undulating course’, before the results were confirmed Chris reckoned anyone ‘would have done very well to sneak a PB’ and so it proved. There were still strong runs from everyone there though, as he came in ahead of Steve Monaghan, Jonathan Hopkin, Rob Shulman and Isobel Rae.
Parkruns
First finishes from the big guns this week as Andrew Brooker, Tom Aldred and Ryan McCrickerd finished front of the packs at Richmond, Finsbury Park and Hampstead Heath respectively, while Rebecca Bunting was first lady at her regular Oak Hill stomping ground. This week’s full results here: http://www.parkrun.com/results/consolidatedclub/?clubNum=2017&eventdate=2015-11-28
Full Classified Results:
Turkey Trot 5k, Virginia USA, Friday 26th
10 - Jonathan Litchfield - 17:54
49 - Jessica Vinluan - 21:23
Serpentine Last Friday of The Month 5k, Hyde Park, Friday 26th
27 Chris Shipley 17:54
33 Steve Monaghan 18:08
37 Jonathan Hopkin 18:16
51 Rob Shulman 19:05
58 Isobel Rae 19:16
Fraternity and Sorority Cups, Trent Park, Saturday 27th
Senior Women (8km, 44 finishers)
4. Rebecca Bunting 33.27
5. Cas Wright 33.45
13. Satu Hietanen 37.03
21. Elizabeth Beard 39.08
25. Louisa Pointon 39.36
27. Caroline White 39.54
Senior Men (8km, 162 finishers)
1. James Wooldridge 27.42
2. Adam Kirk-Smith 27.44
7. Charles Hardy 28.57
20. Jonathan Hopkin 30.42
22. John Flahive 30.51
28. Rajiv Ratan 31.16
37. Stuart Meiklejohn 31.48
38. Chris Hartley 31.52
39. Adam Mitchell 32.06
43. Mario Cadete 32.18
48. Dom Jackson 32.25
53. Dan Jackson (??) 32.42
56. Tony Killilea 32.50
59. Pete Crockford 33.02
64. Phillip Duggan 33.14
72. Tony Shearer 33.58
73. Kris Milovsorov 33.59
85. James Dark 34.43
86. Jake Spencer 34.44
89. Henry Hamilton 35.07
105. Elliot Reed 36.27
113. Richard Peachment 37.09
115. Gavin Parish 37.16
117. Marco Maserati 37.22
118. Marcus Dryburgh 37.26
119. Jesper Lykke 37.36
120. Julian Costley 37.40
121. Ollie Pound 37.49
122. Hasan Nahal 37.50
126. Jeff Vetere 37.58
134. Mark Kelder 38.58
143. Andrew Prystawsky 40.15
145. Neil Davies 40.24
146. Steve Betts 40.40
150. Ken Townson 42.37
152. Adrian Essex 43.48
155. Bob Gould 44.35
Wolverton 5, Milton Keynes, Saturday 28th
162 Rob Bowler 36:00
Florence Marathon, Sunday 29th
525 Jim Connell 3:06:04
Hatfield 5, Sunday 29th
5 Ed Samuel 27:48
13 Ben Wolfe 29:32