Wessex League XC – Kings Park – 1 November 2009
After a week of glorious
weather, on Saturday night the wind got up and the rain came down.
Weather forecasters had predicted that the rain would stop late morning
on Sunday, but when the course was inspected at around 9.30am the
forecast was looking a little on the optimistic side. Those of us on the
early shift got a bit of a soaking, and in the wind our tent erecting
turned into farce. Hats off to the Met Office, their forecast was spot
on. The rain stopped at 11am and the wind dropped a little too.
With WAC as the host club
our first priority was to run the event efficiently and make the course
as safe as possible. This can only be done with a good number of
volunteers. Organising a safe race meeting is a very labour intensive
business so a huge vote of thanks must go out to all our volunteers. The
marshals were made up of WACers, plus family and friends who were all
roped in and did a superb job.
The, largely, unsung heroes
at this race and many others are those who give up their time to
officiate at both cross-country and road races and have huge experience.
They, unselfishly, do not confine their activities to their own club’s
races but help all of us out. We were very fortunate to have so many of
these ‘old hands’ at Kings Park, special thanks go to Ken Ballam, John
Gregory, Nigel Harding, Chris Potter (his second event of the day,
having been at a 10k road race earlier) and John Rhoden.
Now to the racing
One of the big attractions
of the Wessex League to WAC is that it enables us to introduce our young
runners, who show such promise in the club training sessions, to
competitive cross-country races at an early age. Of the six runners in
the under-11s race, four were making their WAC XC debuts. The first red
shirt in was 9 year-old Liam Murphy-Parry, in his first race he ran an
excellent third place. After 1.7km Liam was just 11 seconds behind the
race winner. Team results are made up from our best three scorers and
James Hughes (also making his debut) was our next man in and our top 3
was rounded off when Grace Copeland (9 years-old) was the first girl to
cross the line. Harry Hughes (James’ younger brother) was next home,
then came Phoebe O’Mahony, who ran this year’s longer course with
greater confidence, and in close contact with her for most of the way
was Pippa Hine who was another of our XC debutants.
|
Wimborne’s great
prospects wait for the gun in the under-11s race. Left to right:
Pippa, Phoebe, James, Harry, Liam and Grace. |
The next race up was the
under-13 girls race. Having got off to a flying start to the season in
the Hampshire League, it’s a measure of how far Sharon Hutchings has
come that 4th place was disappointing. Sharon was definitely
a little under-par on the day. She is capable of claiming race wins in
this league, watch her fly when she fires on all cylinders. Kelly
O’Mahony stepped straight into the under-13s race to make her XC debut
and stuck to the task over the 2.7km course. Zoe Taylor was also making
her XC debut, Zoe’s ambition to compete was admirable as she had only
trained once with Wimborne’s endurance athletes (and this was the
previous day). Unfortunately the race came too soon for her and she was
caught out judging pace and distance. Zoe will have learnt quite a bit
from the experience and is to be commended for her spirit.
When the gun went off the
under-13 boys flew away from the line. Right in the thick of it was Ryan
Walbridge who found himself in a three man scrap at the front of the
field. We have to remember this is only Ryan’s second XC race, on the
day Ryan had to settle for second place but with the experience gained
from competing and coupled with some hard work in the training sessions
Ryan will be challenging for race wins. Piers Copeland was in 4th,
a tremendous first race in this age group. Piers was almost certainly
the youngest runner in this race, having got special dispensation to run
in this category (his 11th birthday is not until the end of
November).
Alex Vaughan-Johncey was
our sole representative in the under-15 girls race. Alex ran solidly to
finish exactly at mid-point in the field.
At the first Hampshire
League race the under-15 boys team (made up of Callum Kennedy, Lewis
Murphy-Parry and Jack Snook) made a very encouraging start to the
season. Unfortunately, of that team only Callum was available to run at
Kings Park. It was great to see Tate Young back in a red shirt once
again. Tate ran with us a few years ago – It will take him a little
while to re-acclimatize but he was back running in his typical gritty
and determined fashion. Callum is one of the few WACers we have a direct
comparison for from last year at Kings Park. Over exactly the same
course 12 months on Callum’s time improved by more than 3 minutes and
got him his highest placing thus far in a cross-country race for
Wimborne.
In the under-17 women’s
race it was great to see Laura Harvey back competing. We haven’t seen
much off her over the summer. Laura should improve steadily over the
season once she steps up her training and would benefit hugely from
getting involved in the senior roadrunners sessions. We look forward to
seeing a lot more of her.
In the senior women’s race
Lynn Hutchings once again led the charge for Wimborne. Like Callum we
are able to compare her time from the same course a year ago and just
like Callum she also improved her time by over three minutes. It was
wonderful to see Barbara Frampton running cross-country once again, with
Barb getting stronger as the race progressed. We welcomed an XC debutant
to complete the ladies team – Paula Hine. With Paula pulling on the red
vest that gave us a complete set of Hines this year in cross-country.
Husband Paul has already run for the men, Pippa ran in the first race of
the day, and older sister Abbie made a very encouraging debut in the
Hampshire League a few weeks back. Apart from Paula recording the
all-important third points scorer for the team, she had played a key
role in getting our juniors warmed up for their races earlier in the
day.
The final race was the
senior men. Of our seven runners, five of them had been putting in
sterling service as marshals since the start of the day. An unselfish
act as this is hardly the best race preparation. As the weather wasn’t
too cold they weren’t compromised too heavily and put in some decent
performances, enabling us to claim 4th team on the day.
Once again I must say a
huge thank you for those who came along and helped too numerous to
mention individually. However, I would like to specifically mention
those who came down early on (and got a good soaking for their
trouble!), Phil Burgess, Bob Caines, Craig Dixon, Stewart Little, Claire
Newby and Nicki Roe.
WACers times and results were:
Under-11s (23 finishers) –
Wimborne 2nd team
3 – Liam Murphy-Parry – 6:40
8 – James Hughes – 6:58
10 – Grace Copeland – 7:09 (first girl
overall)
18 – Harry Hughes – 8:03
19 – Phoebe O’Mahony – 8:09
20 – Pippa Hine – 8:18
Under-13 Girls (15 finishers)
4 – Sharon Hutchings – 9:42
14 – Kelly O’Mahony – 11:17
Under-13 Boys (9 finishers)
2 – Ryan Walbridge – 8:37
4 – Piers Copeland – 9:05
Under-15 Girls (11 finishers)
6 – Alex Vaughan-Johncey – 14:42
Under-15 Boys (9 finishers)
2 – Callum Kennedy – 14:54
9 – Tate Young – 19:20
Under-17 Women (5 finishers)
5 – Laura Harvey – 23:25
Senior Women (19 finishers) – 3rd
team
9 – Lynn Hutchings – 19:13
17 – Barbara Frampton – 23:54
19 – Paula Hine – 24:31
Senior Men (35 finishers) (Wimborne
4th team, and 3rd Vets team))
10 – Stewart Little – 33:18
20 – Rich House – 37:40
21 – Andrew Olden – 38:48
22 – Paul Teck – 39:03
23 – Phil Burgess – 39:22
29 – Paul Hine – 40:35
30 – John Hutchings – 40:36
Full results for the Wessex League will
be found at
www.wessexleague.com
