19/12/09 - HHH win back the Colman Cup, but miss out on the main prize at South of Thames "Senior"
Following on from the controversial squad rotation practised by a Premiership football manager earlier this week, Herne Hill Harriers had their own, rather more enforced version of a different team in successive events at the South of Thames XC Championship on a frozen Wimbledon Common. Already depleted at the previous Surrey League race we now found that 5 of our scoring 10 from that race were out injured a week later, but such is our depth we were able to add 4 good men to mount a credible challenge for both the 12 man and the 6 man team awards. Indeed depth is the operative word, as we had no less than 3 sextets in the top 10 of the 14 complete teams contesting the race. This was enough for an emphatic "12 to score" team win to reclaim the Colman Cup we had won at Nork Park 2 years ago, but we missed out on winning the more prestigious 6 to score competition for the Dewar Shield as we were narrowly beaten into 3rd place by host club Belgrave Harriers and Kent AC.
Interestingly although our 6 man team only included 2 scorers from the week before, our 12 did contain 5 men who had been in our winning 6 at this race 2 years ago and another who had just missed scoring on that occasion, but closed our 6 this time around. Leading our team was Chris Peach, who showed his recent problems with a low iron count are on the mend as he placed a fine 12th. Our next 4 men had all been part of our winning team at Nork Park, as Tim Elsey (18th) just got the better of Francis Marsh (19th), Jeff Cunningham (22nd) and Rob Karn (24th). Tim is starting to find form as his season progresses, while Francis claimed the medal for first M40, Jeff produced a good effort less than 2 weeks after his superb marathon pb in Japan and Rob ran his best race for around 18 months as he too looks towards the bigger races that take place in the New Year. Closing the team in 31st was another man whose form has picked up in the last couple of weeks after a disappointing November as Simon Coombes was this time able to squeeze into our scoring 6.
We effectively fell short for winning the Shield by virtue of having nobody in the first 10, although we did have second claim Orlando Edwards running as a non scoring guest and finishing 4th in a good quality field. We can be justly proud of our team packing as our runners were coming in fast and with 12 scorers all in the top 52 we easily won the Colman Cup to take home as our Christmas silverware. Mike Cummings ran well to place 35th and was followed in by John Kettle, 36th. John had been our 6th man in the top 30 for much of the race, but turned his ankle rather badly with a little over a mile to run and did well to not only finish, but minimise his loss of places in the closing stages, his reward being to leave the venue on crutches. Jonathan Stead continued his comeback in 38th and Keith Newton, who had led our team 2 years ago was this time our 10th man in 40th place as frustratingly we closed 10 men before Belgrave had completed their winning 6, but had got off to a flying start with men in 1st and 2nd.
Our 12 man team was rounded off by good runs from Sarwar Khan, 51st and Rajdave Singh 52nd, but we didn't stop there as we had a C team that beat 3 other club's A teams. Vic Maughn (54th), Tony Harran (76th), Matt Conway (81st), Paul Shiel (94th), Jim Zaple (113th) and Ben Hallifax (119th) were our C team counters and with another 4 men completing the 7.5 miles course we almost filled a D team.
Our women did not muster a team to defend the title we won last year, but Karen Ellison had a very good run to win an individual silver medal, backed up by Helen Sharp in 10th and Sarah Allen in 17th. (Geoff Jerwood)
Full results, courtesy of race organiser Don Turner and the host club web site are at this link:-
http://belgraveharriers.com/results/SoTChamps2009.xls
13/12/09 - Top run for Whitby at Euro XC, but men fall further behind in Surrey League
Benedict Whitby had a fine run at the European Cross Country Championships in Dublin, backing up his excellent 3rd place in the trial by being 4th team scorer for Great Britain when placing 27th on a muddy course that was nevertheless fast in places. He went out hard in the first lap and at the halfway stage was perhaps paying a little for such exuberance, but on the last couple of the 6 laps of 1.5km he rallied superbly to ensure that he made the scoring team just ahead of Britain's 5th man. The British team put in a good performance to win silver team medals behind a strong Spanish quartet.
More locally our men's Surrey League team now has it all to do in the final league Division 1 race in February, after a second defeat in 3 races leaves our hopes of extending our 4 year reign as champions hanging by a thread. A very good turnout at Richmond Park in numerical depth, with no less than 34 red and black vests on the start line failed to mask our frailty again where it matters most in the upper reaches of the field. With a number of men out ill or injured and one or two walking wounded or sick who still turned out to help the team but fell short of their usual excellent best, we lost the race by 46 points to Thames Hare & Hounds and we now trail our friends and rivals by 67 points.
This deficit is not insurmountable, but is a very tough call and any remaining hopes we have will rest on whether we can muster a seriously strong turn out in the last race of the series. Thames will not be complacent as they know how good we can be if we can have the luck to be rid of the problems of the past few weeks, and one thing that we can guarantee is that HHH will not give up.
A big well done to all 34 who did run and especially Chris Busaileh who, despite his own injury problems ran possibly his best ever race to date in placing 5th, backed up by Kevin Quinn 7th and Jonny Henderson with a great 10th placing. Our remaining scoring team members were Alan Barnes (running sick), Iain Lockett (returning from sick), Tim Elsey, Simon Coombes (showing a welcome return to form), Dave Peters, John Kettle and Jonathan Stead (returning after a combination of work deadlines and moving flats).
HHH women also placed 2nd team behind Thames in their senior race to move up to 4th in the overall league standings after 3 races. An exciting club debut saw Cathy Ansell place 4th in a very strong field and with a guest runner just ahead she was 3rd in the scoring race. One place behind and backing up her recent fine form was Karen Ellison, and also inside the overall top 10 and 6th in the Div 1 scoring race was Suzie Richards. HHH would have easily won a 3 to score contest, but with 5 runners per team and a wait to 39th and 40th overall for Helen Sharp and Suzanne Swaine to close the A team our team tally was 20 points shy of Thames but a fine team effort nonetheless. As with the men we had a good complement of runners, as we also had a B team placed 13th, a C team in 23rd and our D team was 41st.
In the younger age groups our U17 women and U13 boys were our only teams of any age to taste victory on the day. Katie Snowden won the U17 race for good measure and also a good warm up for an indoor 800m win against senior women at Lee Valley the following day. With Hannah Edwards 4th, Armelle Foulkes 8th and Aisha Naibe-Wey 9th we secured a comfotable team win. Merhawi Yemane and Lascelles Hussey were 2nd and 3rd respectively at the head of our wining U13 boys team. Our U15 women, led by 2nd placed Alexandra West, who also enjoyed an indoor 800m win the next day were 2nd team and our U13 women were 4th team with Georgie Hay 4th individual. Lewis Lloyd make a comeback after a long lay off with injury and illness to place 2nd in the U17 men's race to lead home yet another 2nd placed HHH team, while Michael Brown was 3rd U15 boy. (Geoff Jerwood)
Results are at these links:-
http://www.ranelagh-harriers.com/results/091212m.html
http://www.ranelagh-harriers.com/results/091212f.html
05/12/09 - Quinn wins again to conquer at Pirie 10
Following on from his runaway victory by over 2 minutes in the Beddington Park 10K just 6 days earlier, Kevin Quinn became our 2009 HHH club 10 miles cross country champion with an outright win at the Pirie 10 at Farthing Down, Coulsdon. We now incorporate this particular club championship into this fixture, organised by our local friends and rivals South London Harriers and this seems to have helped ensure good representation with some worthy winners of the huge Dewar Shield in recent years and an almost guaranteed prize (usually beers, I understand) for the best visiting team on the day. Kev saw off a determined challenge from top veteran runner Jason Simpson, exchanging the lead on numerous occasions before our man prevailed by 5 seconds in the finishing sprint to win in 55:15. This sets Kev up nicely for a strong run in our big head to head confrontation with Thames Hare & Hounds at next Saturday's Surrey League race.
Kevin was very well backed up in the aforementioned team contest, not least by another man who usually reserves his best races for the track and the road, as Mike Cummings placed a fine 4th, recording a time of 60:20. Rajdave Singh was able to run in his own name this week and was our 3rd team counter in 9th place in a fine 62:52, while the scoring team was closed by Paul Shiel in 17th in 65:48. Other HHH runners to complete what is a serious and arduous test of true cross country, especially given the recent heavy rainfall, were Ben Hallifax, 32nd in 70:12, Simon Donaghy, 38th in 71:39, Penelope Fixter, 77th overall in 85:40 and Hassan Dervish, 85th in 90:21.
Meanwhile, over in Japan Jeff Cunningham scorched his marathon PB to set a new mark of 2:30:15, richly deserved after putting in so much training.
Finally I should add Keith Newton to the weekend's roll of honour, as he successfully defended his Sussex Vets cross title off mainly swimming training and then later on, reaping the benefit of the latter he also placed 3rd in his club swimming champs 1:06 for 100m freestyle, and 4th in the 200m. (Geoff Jerwood)
