Hampshire League Race 1 – 10 November – Farley Mount,
Winchester
The
new cross-country season kicked off in glorious sunshine. Farley Mount
is a fantastic venue, and it was great to see so many new faces
competing for us. WAC XC debutants were Alex Diment, Abbie Hine, Rich
House, John Hutchings,
Lewis Murphy-Parry and Ryan Walbridge. Harry George has run for us in
the Wessex League before but this was his first Hampshire League race.
Along with our runners came a sizeable number of WAC supporters which
included coach Ed Arnold, who was there to watch our athletes cash in on
all that hard work they have been putting in on his Tuesday night
sessions.
The meeting kicked off with
the under-13 girls race and we had Sharon Hutchings and Abbie competing
for us in this category. Sharon has had an impressive track season, but
for the past month she has been really poorly. After a break from
training to recover, she came back around 10 days ago – and it was clear
then that she was still far from fully fit. None of us had any idea was
sort of run she would be capable of. The gun went off and she was
immediately in the lead group. Abbie set off at a decent pace that saw
her placed right in the middle of the pack on her XC debut. The girls
disappeared into the woods, there were a few WAC supporters out on the
course to shout their encouragement, but most of us waited anxiously to
see them re-enter the field in the final stages of the race. As the
leaders came into sight it was very reassuring to see a red shirt
amongst them. Sharon finished in 8th position and Abbie maintained her mid-field
position right until the finish line. This is only our second season in
the Hampshire League, which is one of the strongest local cross-country
leagues in the country, and
Sharon had just recorded the highest ever finish so far for a Wimborne runner
in a Hampshire League race in any age group. Abbie’s run was also
impressive as over the summer she has trained at many events and hasn’t
specialized in endurance/middle distance work as many of the girls she
was running against would have done. She finished looking in great
shape, and the experience of competing in her first cross-country race
at this level will, for sure, see her go even better in the future. What
we need to do is to find at least one more runner to compete in this age
group so that we can compete for team points – we do have some likely
candidates who have trained with us over the summer in Wimborne. The
mood in the WAC camp was buoyant after watching these two fine
performances. They were going to be a tough act to follow.
Next up were the under-13
boys and there were four red shirts to watch out for here. Of the four,
only Jordan Symington had run in a Hampshire League race before. Ryan
was well-placed off the start line with Alex, Harry and Jordan making
more conservative starts. They disappeared out of sight and, on
re-emerging into view, there was another red shirt involved at the sharp
end of the field. Ryan had a fantastic run, finishing 9th,
the best Hampshire League debut for any WAC runner to date. Alex was in
next, with Jordan and Harry within 30 seconds of him. Both Alex and
Harry will have learnt a lot from their Hampshire debuts, they are both
real prospects and with more race experience they are going to make real
progress. Looking at the full results, gains of quite small amounts of
time in this age-group will make up quite a few places. It was brilliant
to see Jordan competing as we hadn’t seen much of him over the summer.
Clearly he has been working hard, because this was probably his best XC
run in a red shirt so far. Well done lads, collectively you have got us
into 11th place in the team competition.
Our sole representative in
the under-15 girls race was Alex Vaughan-Johncey. Alex ran a similar
race to Abbie and looked extremely comfortable throughout, and this was
despite quite a few interruptions to her training over the summer, well
done, Alex.
It was great to be able to
field a full team in the under-15 boys race. Old hands Callum Kennedy
and Jack Snook were joined by debutant Lewis. Our three runners all
handled the start quite differently. Absolutely up for it was Lewis, who
took off like a bullet from a gun and found himself amongst the leaders
in the early stages. Jack started steadily and was mid-field with Callum
a distance further back. This race was unlike all the previous ones, as
we got to see the runners run a lap of the field before
disappearing into woodland. From the start there was around 200m of
flat, before a prolonged and stiff climb, followed by a swift descent
prior to entering the woods. By the time our three runners completed
that first circuit of the field they were starting to come together with
Jack catching Lewis and Callum gaining on both of them. It was going to
be interesting to see how the race would unfold. First into view was
Callum, with Jack in hot pursuit, and hanging on to the pair of them was
a very determined Lewis. Just four places and 16 seconds covered our
three runners as they claimed 9th place in team category. It
was a particularly gritty performance from Lewis as, if you get your
pacing wrong and go off too quickly, it is all too easy to drift back
through the field for the rest of the race. You can only really learn
racecraft by experience and Lewis will have learnt a lot here. A great
team effort.
It was disappointing not to
get out a full ladies team, stalwarts Lynn and Maddy need some back-up.
Lynn is an absolute Trojan and did a superb job on a tough and demanding
two full laps of the circuit. Maddy has been having problems with her
feet and this has restricted her mileage of late. The medical advice she
was given suggested that she should be OK for a cross-country race,
however, as the ground was pretty firm, by the end of the first lap it
was clear that she was going to find the rest of the race challenging.
Maddy is a very determined character so she completed that second lap
and recorded a time, but ended up receiving attention from the St John’s
for her troubles. This was Maddy’s first race as a senior and it was
disappointing to see it end this way. Once those feet have been sorted
out watch her fly.
The final race was the
senior men. Almost 300 setting off from the start line for three laps.
It was great to see so many WACers out there. Colin Read (Speedy Ready)
and Graeme ‘Bionic’ Furley renewed their rivalry of last season, with
‘Bionic’ determined to catch ‘Speedy’ during the course of the season.
These two pushed each other, to improve on last year’s times at Farley
Mount by a minute. There was more team-mate rivalry between Craig Dixon,
Daryl Davies and Graham Whiffen. Sandwiched between these groups was
Jerry Shield, making a rare XC league appearance and ‘Mr Consistent’
Stewart Little. New boy Rich House wasn’t too far behind the
Craig/Daryl/Graham tussle. Further back Phil Burgess, Paul Hine, Ian
Kennedy and Steve Snook were also renewing old rivalries, with debutant
John Hutchings in the mix for good measure. John fell into the same trap
that Lewis had earlier, for sure he will learn from it. Although there
were some great performances amongst our senior men there were a few
dramas too. Rich developed a pretty significant nosebleed, the scent of
blood seemed to make him run faster though! Steve has plenty of speed in
Ed’s sessions but is having trouble translating that to the longer
distances at the moment, we look forward to seeing him recover his true
XC form. Phil came along to Farley Mount because it was a beautiful day,
in what he knew was a great setting, despite not feeling 100%. One lap
of this demanding circuit was enough to tell Phil it wasn’t his smartest
idea. We look forward to seeing a fully fit Phil for the next meeting.
Last year our men won promotion to Division Two in the Hampshire League,
we have got off to a great start, there is a long way to go but we
currently lie in fourth place. For the veterans the news is even better,
we are top of the table in Division Two.
Looking at last year’s
results we can see who has made the biggest improvements (of those who
took part in the same age-group races). Callum was the most improved of
the juniors, gaining two minutes, but the biggest improver of all was
Paul who improved by a mighty four minutes – a tremendous performance!
Well done to all involved in a great team effort, having such vocal
support was a great bonus too.
WACers times and results were:
Under-13 Girls (68 finishers)
8 – Sharon Hutchings – 9:13
37 – Abbie Hine – 10:05
Under-13 Boys (85 finishers) –
Wimborne 11th team
9 – Ryan Walbridge – 10:50
53 – Alex Diment – 12:29
55 – Jordan Symington – 12:32
64 – Harry George – 12:59
Under-15 Girls (52 finishers)
33 – Alex Vaughan-Johncey – 12:38
Under-15 Boys (58 finishers) –
Wimborne 9th team
32 – Callum Kennedy – 14:42
34 – Jack Snook – 14:50
35 – Lewis Murphy-Parry – 14:56
Senior Women (114 finishers)
67 – Lynn Hutchings – 27:35
96 – Maddy Vaughan-Johncey – 31:38
Senior Men (278 finishers) (Wimborne
4th in Div. 2, Wimborne Vets 1st in Div 2)
62 – Colin Read – 33:10
79 – Graeme Furley – 34:06
103 – Jerry Shield – 35:22
137 – Stewart Little – 36:30
164 – Craig Dixon – 38:09
191 – Daryl Davies – 39:39
204 – Graham Whiffen – 40:09
221 – Rich House – 41:16
233 – Ian Kennedy – 42:06
236 – Paul Hine – 42:29
240 – John Hutchings – 43:09
272 – Steve Snook – 48:35
Full results for the Hampshire League
will be found at
www.athletics.hampshire.org.uk/events/hxcl.html
