Men's team 5th in South of England CC
Our men's team finished 5th in the South of England CC at Parliament Hill. Rescheduled from its original date, the course was a quagmire, leaving all concerned to wonder again at the reasons behind the cancellation. Not surprisingly with the National just a week away and people's plans having been disrupted, numbers were well down with only 541 finishers compared with 745 at the less popular Brighton venue last year. A dozen crates were filled with unused chip envelopes, leaving clubs and team managers frustrated. By Tuesday evening no official results had been received from the South of England Athletics Association, leaving word of mouth to possibly convey the message that Marshall Milton Keynes Athletics Club had posted a link to a version of the results that did not contain the usual 9-to-score breakdown nor B team positions.
On the performance side, Martyn Cryer had a terrific run for 19th and the team's position was at least solid.
Another disappointment was that the legendary uphill start of the race was greatly shortened this year with the start line being above the footpath. Otherwise the course did not disappoint, with a tremendous amount of mud.
Pre-race rumour had Bedford and Highgate favourites for the main prizes, but Team Manager Terry McCarthy had a slight hope that we might snatch bronze if all went well. But as it happened, our team was under par as we lost Kevin Murphy to a heavy cold on the morning, and Bertie Powell raced - as he always insists on doing - despite being very much under the weather.
Martyn Cryer had been working until 2.30 in the morning but he was perfectly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in his approach to the race, securing a position of around 20th early on and defending it to the death. This involved him holding off the likes of Highgate's Russell (20) and Pochee (26) who were right behind for mile upon mile without every closing the gap. Another good scalp was Belgrave's Paskar Owar (29).
Though Darren Southcott began very aggressively, around 20th very early on, once the race settled down it was Angus Holford and Harold Wyber who were our next men. Holford had a very fine race, very controlled and strong in the second half, and his 39th, about a minute behind Cryer, was just reward, though he deemed it not as good as his 55th in 2010. Wyber defended his position in the mid-40s well but could make no inroad into Holford who ended with a 26" gap. Nonetheless Wyber took good scalps like Dodwell (Highgate), Earl (Norwich) and Tucker(Blackheath).
Southcott battled well but perhaps his quick start made all the difference as he kept losing places and finished in 71st, over 2 minutes down on Wyber - the gaps were surprisingly big! Our fifth man home was Louis Clark, who ran extremely well in his debut Southern, in the low 90s for many miles before picking a few more off in the end to finish 86th, 49" behind Southcott. Bertie Powell gave it his best shot, starting around 50th but drifting backwards as he felt and looked terrible, to tumble over the line in 97th.
Bedford took the title convincingly with a magnificent points total of just 57, closing their six scorers in 18 with two more in the top 40. Highgate took silver with 156 points, and Aldershot bronze with 221. Serpentine were 4th with 300 and our 357 left us well ahead of Belgrave who scored 424.
In general, Essex clubs were conspicuous by their absence. Only two others closed six men - Eton Manor scored 1705 points and Springfield Striders 2640.
We, on the other hand, closed another 12 men. Tony Russell had a very good run in his first Southern, always around 120th. Jim Roche, an old hand, had a very strong last lap but Russell had the strength to hold him off over the final 400m, finishing 118 and 121. Gareth Cavell (133) said he never got going and there was no comparison between his performance here and the one which won him a team gold in the Essex. In 154 Rob Wilbraham surprised himself after missing a lot of training recently, and had a good tussle with M50 Tony Pamphilon, eventually stretching away to beat him by 13" - Pamphilon's 161 was nonetheless an accomplished run. And our 12th man home was Tim Ballard in 176, who missed the start - not by long but perhaps it led to him starting too quickly in order to make up the lost ground.
Closing 12 men in 176 was a pleasing result. Only 6 clubs in total closed their first SIX men in 176, never mind 12 men.
But we had several more out there, too. Joe Everitt found the going really tough but was well inside the top half of the field in 240th. New lad Omar Sharef looked happier on this longer course than on the short courses, and was 284th. 5 minutes down in 382 was M55 Alistair Holford for whom 9 miles is like a marathon, and 30-60" in front of him was Richard Hogg who, unfortunately, the results did not pick up, perhaps due to a chip malfunction. Andy Smith (404) was 90" down on Holford, M50 Tom Spanyol (444) another 4 minutes down and M60 Roger Green (493), by finishing, ensured we closed 3 full teams of six plus one. Perhaps one day the SEAA will release a fuller set of results?
Team Manager McCarthy said, "So many teams struggled to get numbers out for this race that you have to say we did well to close 18 finishers! We were certainly solid at every level, and we're pleased that the race was actually able to take place in the end."