Southern CCC 2020
Southern Cross Country Championships Parliament Hill last Saturday (Jan 25) saw our senior men come eighth in the team event while our women’s team came sixteenth. With much of the athletics press and social media being dominated by stories about a well known brand of running shoe, it was good to get back to the sports roots – just over nine miles of unrelenting toil round Hampstead Heath. Here the talk was more about the length of spikes required rather than carbon plates and cushioning. Given that both our men’s and women’s teams were some way off full strength their respective finishing positions had to be viewed in a positive light. Our men were once again led home by Jim Allchin who as previously remarked has been so consistent for us this season. Unlike so many on this course who can’t resist going off fast (and paying for it) Jim started relatively conservatively and moved through the field. He finished strongly in an impressive seventeenth. In the six to score competition our next two scorers were Chris Greenwood (54th) and Neil Phillips (61st). For much of the race the pair were close together but Chris pulled away from Neil in the closing stages. Chris has raced sparingly this season following various injury niggles so to finish just outside fifty did him great credit. It was another good run from Neil following on from strong Surrey league runs and just missing out on the Kent masters title. Fourth scorer was Cedric Hauben (81st) Whilst I’m aware there are challenging cross country courses in Belgium, I’m pretty sure Cedric won’t have encountered anything like Parliament Hill before. The two completing the six to score were Dave Morgan(119th) and George Russell. David’s was a somewhat typical run – a steady start, then moving through the field in the second half. Possibly the run of the day was George Russell (152nd) – just outside the top 150 is good going when you look at the calibre of runner he was keeping company with. A relative newcomer to the club George is steadily improving and is clearly going to be a great asset to our scoring teams. Aside from the scoring six there were a number of other noteworthy runs on the most testing of courses. Whilst there were several notable absentees from the team, we still had 27 runners turn out – all of whom finished the gruelling course. Apart from the likes of Serpentine and Highgate I’m sure there weren’t many clubs who could muster this number. The winner of the race by a very clear margin was Southend’s Adam Hickey. He seems to be rounding into very good form before he attempts to gain an Olympic qualifying time at the forthcoming London marathon. Aldershot won the team title with Tonbridge second and Highgate third. POS NAME BIB CATEGORY GUN TIME CHIP TIME SCORE 17 Jim Allchin 3590 00:49:33 17 54 Chris Greenwood 3607 00:52:11 54 61 Neil Phillips 3623 00:52:32 61 84 Cedric Hauben 3609 00:53:24 84 119 David Morgan 3621 00:54:46 119 152 George Russell 3626 00:55:34 152 178 Dame Dibaba 3600 00:56:17 179 Calum Fraser 3603 00:56:18 185 Ben Cook 3594 00:56:26 251 Peter Lighting 3615 00:58:01 275 Ben McGeown 3619 00:58:38 300 Richard Giles 3604 00:59:11 338 Tom Thain 3631 00:59:54 398 Ian Ellwood 3602 01:01:02 429 Tim Copley 3595 01:01:37 POS NAME BIB CATEGORY GUN TIME CHIP TIME SCORE 447 Jake Herera 3611 01:02:00 489 Daniel Ansell 3591 01:02:47 552 James Bowler 3592 01:04:12 564 Iago Martinez 3617 01:04:29 584 Tim Sharp 3629 01:04:48 655 Michael Duncan 3601 01:06:14 711 Christopher Quaid 3625 01:07:24 777 Khawaja Shahabuddin 3628 01:09:12 844 Alan Curtis 3597 01:11:20 977 John Greene 3606 01:16:07 1049 Phil Marsden 3616 01:19:34 1079 Neil Gordon-Orr 3605 01:21:17 Senior Women As with the men, our senior women’s team were missing several that make a big contribution to our scoring. Nevertheless, those that competed really put a shift in on the demanding course. Whilst they didn’t have to take on the daunting length of course the men faced, their five plus miles still amounted to quite a challenge. They had to contend with thick, boggy mud for much of the race. Sarah Hanley’s tremendous season continued with another top- quality run. Sarah was well inside the top fifty in this very competitive field (42nd). Our next runner home would probably agree that cloying mud isn’t her favourite surface. And from my vantage point it maybe looked as though Alexa Parker’s spikes could have been a bit longer. She seemed to be slipping and sliding even more than some of those around her. But she battled on and made it inside the top hundred (96th). Running strongly in her usual determined style our third scorer in the four to score competition was Teresa Murphy (146th). Our fourth scorer, coming inside the top 200, Megan Williams ran a fine, controlled race (192nd) As well as our scorers we had another nine intrepid women undaunted by the tough conditions. They are listed below in our results. The race was won in convincing style by Jess Gibbon of Reading AC. Highgate won the team event with Aldershot second and Tonbridge third. POS NAME BIB CATEGORY GUN TIME CHIP TIME SCORE 42 Sarah Hanley 5122 00:32:32 42 96 Alexa Parker 5128 00:34:20 96 146 Teresa Murphy 5125 00:35:54 146 192 Megan Williams 5132 00:37:25 192 267 Susannah Fairbrass 5119 00:39:31 283 Claire Sutton 5131 00:39:55 292 Zuzana Nemeckova 5126 00:40:05 351 Nicky Hayes 5123 00:41:31 390 Jo Mott 5124 00:42:30 407 Sarah Young 5133 00:42:50 470 Amanda Nio 5127 00:44:56 490 Eleanor Parker 5129 00:45:43 656 Annabelle Hadlow 5121 00:55:20