South of England Relays: Men 10th; M50s silver
Our senior men's team opened the winter season at Aldershot on Sunday with a very solid 10th place in the South of England 6-Stage Road Relay. Our M50 team took silver in their 4-Stage event.
The men who were available and selected for our A team at Aldershot delivered a sound performance, never being lower than 13th or higher than 10th in a good-quality event which 77 teams began and 68 full teams completed. It was our third-best performance in this race since 2002, both in terms of time and position.
Daniel Agustus led off in his favoured first leg spot and, despite no longer having the withering opening speed of his pomp, he worked through the decelerating pack in typical composed style to hand over in 11th place after clocking 18 minutes 49 seconds on the two-lap 6K course. It was his fastest tour of this course, and hoisted him into 9th place on the club's all-time list.
Daniel Bruynooghe, (né Hawellek) with his extended family of multilinguists in tow to support, usually runs further down the order and carves through the field, but this year he was on leg 2 and found himself right in the mix. He produced a very able time of 19.13 which bisected his 2008 and 2010 efforts of 18.59 and 19.21 - a consistent performer! We dropped, however, to 13th.
On leg 3, Stephan Wenk's pre-race body language was negative. He had run an uphill marathon plus a half-marathon in his native Switzerland in the preceding fortnight and felt low. However his speed belied his negativism and he took us back up to 11th in running our second fastest time of the day, 19.07.
British Universities 800m champion Oli Heeks, on leg 4, has only been back in training for 4-5 weeks following knee surgery, so he naturally lacked sparkle. He was making his debut on this course after coming to support on various occasions. He dropped 2 places in running 20.08, but the race will have brought him on another fraction.
On leg 5 Ben Hope made a very favourable impression as he overtook a host of lapped runners as well as Aldershot's B team, Luton and Shaftesbury. After receiving the team's plaudits he was somewhat disappointed with his recorded time of 19.35 which showed that perceived speed depends largely on how fast those around you are running. But we were now in 10th again.
Angus Holford had stepped into the A team breach on Saturday and he did a fine job. Luton's man caught him early on and then created a gap. But Holford drew him back in again and, on the last bend, launched a well-executed sprint which gave us, by 1 second, a pleasant-sounding Top Ten finish rather a less remarkable Top Eleven. With 19.57, it was the first time in three efforts that Holford had gone under 20 minutes.
The first 25 teams home qualified for the National 6-Stage Road Relay in 3 weeks' time. Team Manager Terry McCarthy said, "Our first task was to qualify for the National - job done. The boys ran admirably and did the club proud. This always comes a little bit early for us. At Sutton Coldfield we'll be three weeks faster!"
We also ran four men in an incomplete B team. For Gareth Cavell it was his introduction to the road relay culture. It was also his first race back after sustaining a fractured pelvis so, not surprisingly, he found it "tough out there", an M40 among the youngsters on the notoriously quick leg 1. He recorded 21.22 for 63rd of the 77 starters. Darren Southcott, also on the comeback road after injury, was pleased to get a race under his belt and climbed 7 places to 56th in running 20.40. Kiwi Tim Prendergast last raced in January in the World Paralympic Championships at which he injured himself so, again, this was his comeback race too. The partially-sighted athlete did really well, passing eight men to leave us in 48th place as he was officially timed at one second faster than Southcott, 20.39.
Jon Long ran leg 4 in 22.25 - some way down on the low 21s that he recorded in 2006, 2008 and 2009, so he knows he has some work to do. With nobody wanting to run twice, that's where the B team left it.
Other results of interest: Our Met League rivals Highgate were an impressive 6th, Serpentine 20th and Shaftesbury 21st. It was good to see a couple of Essex clubs attending - something which cannot be taken for granted these days! Havering were 32nd and Ilford 39th.
Prior to the senior race was the M50 event which was incorporated with M40s and M60s. Our venerable squad went with a good team having won bronze in 2010 and silver in 2009. On leg 1, Terry McCarthy was disappointed with his time of 22.57. He finished in 10th, just behind a cluster of M50s. But South London Harriers' man had set out their stall by finishing over a minute ahead of everyone else!
Richard Holland did a great job closing down South London's leg 2 man, narrowing the gap by around 45" and putting us clear in 2nd place as he clocked 21.26. Dave Cox did the same on their leg 3 man, closing inexorably to within 5 seconds of the leader as he ran 21.28, with nobody now in sight behind as the two teams were a cut above the rest.
Then, on the last leg, Tony Pamphilon, so long cast in the role of "anchor leg hero", found himself well and truly taken apart by South London's Andy Tindall who ran a marvellous 20.28 which was fastest of the day by a massive 37". Pamphilon, Holland and Cox recorded the 4th, 5th and 6th fastest times of the day.
A wry Pamphilon remarked, "That Tindall bloke showed me a clean pair of 'eels and no mistake! I wouldn't mind some of whatever he's on!" So the M50 team were doomed to be bridesmaids again, and not the prettiest bridesmaids that Aldershot has ever seen, it has to be said.
Elsewhere, in Gijon, a lovely seaside resort in Northern Spain, Matt Gunby took the silver medal in the World U23 Duathlon Championship. His 10K time was 30.53 and, after an hour-long bike ride, he followed up with a 15.28 5K. Congratulations to Matt!