SEAA Cross Country Championships, Beckenham Place Park (Sat. 25th Jan.)
Senior Women: If you were waiting for the perfect day and the perfect cross-country course Saturday, writes Christine Bond, was it! Fifteen entered, eight ran and finished, although one, Theresa Massey, did take a mud dive, didn’t get her any added points, but made of tough stuff, she was up and running her way to the finish line.
First in was Georgia Huddleston making a tough course look easy in 34:09, four minutes ahead of next in Christine Bond. Maggie Illingworth wasn’t far behind, then Sally Carr making up the team of four in 23rd position from 36 scoring teams. Marian Hine was the first of the non-scorers to finish, gaining confidence after return from injury, followed by Ceinwen Giles, still relatively new to XC, who seems to pick all the tough courses to do, Emma Brown, who if she keeps moving up though the field as she’s been doing all season the front runners better watch out! Our 356 time marathon runner Theresa Massey came in saying this was harder than marathons!
A good example to us all was Joanne Barber, who was out on the course all day marshalling, so if you can’t run, why not offer your services to the organisers and help.
Senior Men: In contrast to 2024, this year was not James Kingston of Tonbridge’s year, finishing second as he did to a Bournemouth AC runner (Abdinassier Mohamoud Elmi) by over a minute. Otherwise it was business as usual with a course consistently shorter than the billed 15k, but not unwelcomingly so given the combination of greasy surfaces and pathed sections suited neither to spikes nor trail shoes. In a mystery best left to paranormal investigators, the upper slopes never drain and are consistently damp under foot, yet the lower levels are firm and fast. Nevertheless, the level of crowd support is always welcome, and this hard but fair course draws a quality field almost 700 deep for the senior men, writes Peter St-Amour.
Bobby Babaker led home Cambridge Harriers in 74th, on his heels was Danny Kendall (123rd) and James Macdonald (154th). Geoff Smith (256th), Jonathan Sargent (291st) and David Worden (292nd) completed our top six of a total of fifteen entrants. In a tough field, we came 17th in the team rankings with Highgate Harriers coming out victors.
Young Age Groups: It was a close finish between Seren and Esther Yeatman in the under 13 girls race, writes Mark Newell. Only 3 seconds separated them when finishing 56th and 64th respectively. There was a bigger margin between our first two in the under 13 boy's race with Harry Carmody (67th) crossed the line 27 seconds ahead of Herbie Tobin (103rd).
The under 15 boy's race saw our 3 club members all finish within 20 seconds of each other. Austin Richards being our first finisher in 148th place. The under 15 girls race saw Celia Yeatman (52nd) and Meri Cummins (72nd) placed high up in the field of 170 runners.
Olly Buck has been our under 17 men's top cross country runner this season, placing 2nd in each of the Kent League matches. On this occasion, Aniket Iyengar was our first finisher in a respectable 31st place.
As has been the case this season we had one competitor from the club in each of the under 17 and under 20 women's races. Emer Tynan and Amelia Lawrence both finished in 22nd place in their respective races.
London Indoor Games, Lee Valley (Sat. 25th Jan.)
The London indoor Games is probably the UK’s largest open meeting stretching as it does over 4 days at the Lee Valley Indoor Centre, writes Mick Bond. The biggest and best day from the club’s perspective was Saturday 25th Jan. which is when all the Under 17’s compete. Highlights included Hans Nmaju dipping under 8 seconds in the 60m hurdles for the first time cementing his position at the top of the 2025 UK rankings and putting him in the UK all time top ten. Elijah Olaleye made it two Cambridge Harriers at the top of the UK rankings, winning the 400m A Race in a superb PB of 50.67s which also suggests that Omari Markland-Montgomery’s club record of 49.91s might be in danger come the summer.
The best female performances came from Emily Cadman, back in training and racing mode after a bit of a break for exams, achieving the fastest 60m and 200m of the day recording times of 7.84s and 25.07s.
Ryan Lynott cleared a new PB of 1.70 in the high Jump and there were good PBs for Zavier Brathwaite in both the 60m and 200m and Luca Glyde Jones over 200m and 400m.
Next up for many are the EA National Indoor Championships in Sheffield on the weekend of Feb 8th and 9th.
Semi-Marathon International Marrakech, Morocco (Sun. 26th Jan.)
Rose Baker and Julie Backley travelled over to the North African country of Morocco and the beautiful city of Marrakech, which offered an exceptional setting, an often mild climate in the middle of January and a beautiful circuit. Rose finished in a time of 1:38:32 and first W60. Julie crossed clocked 1:41:44.
Canterbury 10 (Sun. 26th Jan.)
Hjalti Rognvaldsson and Vincent Bleu (M40) made the trip to Canterbury for this long standing race, run on quiet lanes to the south of the City, recording times of 1:19:53 and 1:23:04 respectively.
Comments