Met League Fixture #3: Uxbridge
Gavin LauNovember was a busy month for VPH&THAC, filled to the brim with races taking us from Dagenham (Chingford League) to Wembley (Liddiard), Parliament Hill (London Champs) to Trent Park (Chingford League), and it wasn’t even the first Met League of the month (Horsendon)! Despite potential race fatigue, our members turned out to the infamous river crossing of Uxbridge for the Met League’s third fixture to deliver a fantastic performance, securing more points in the bag for the hopeful glory of the coveted Howard Williams Trophy – Could this be our year?
35 women and 47 men made the long TFL journey to west London on a surprisingly dry and mild morning with their trail shoes and spikes packed and ready to go. A big shout out goes to the numerous members who raced their first ever cross country race – what a debut and a fantastic introduction to the brilliant world of mud and grit.
The women’s and men’s teams both narrowly missed out on top position on the day, with the women coming agonisingly close to glory by a mere 2 points to Thames Valley Park, and the men fighting on the heels of their historic rivals Highgate. However, the women’s A team are still ahead in the overall league by 116 points to London Heathside’s 2nd position, and the men are 2nd to Highgate by just 22 points.
Senior Women:
Three in the top 10 (Ciara Boyd-Squires Long – 3rd, Jade Dos Santos – 7th and Laura Thompson – 10th) and five in the top 20 (Laura Kaye 15th, Cat O’Shea 19th).
Kelly Clark 2nd in the female vet’s ranking (25th) with Hazel Norton-Hale (39th) and Robin Norton-Hale (51st) within the top 60.
Senior Men:
Seven in the top 30 (Alex Lawrence -3rd, Paul Martelletti – 12th, James Hotham -14th, Eoin Molloy – 16th, Andrew Barrington – 21st, Joe Dale – 22nd and David Prosser – 26th).
Paul Martelletti and Joe Dale were 1st and 2nd vet, respectively, with David Jones 8th vet (61st) too.
Our strength is further demonstrated by the performance of our B and C teams, with the womens’ B team being 4th in division one, scoring as the first B team by 77 points on the day, enhancing their lead to Heathside’s B team by 249 points overall, and the men’s B team were 7th team on the day, behind Highgate’s B team, but are first B team and 5th team overall in the league so far. Both the men’s and women’s C teams are top of their respective divisions and first of all C teams.
In the juniors, we are just one point behind podium in the Junior Howard Williams trophy with some fantastic performances being seen:
Zayn and Hafsa were the only U11s in their races and came an incredible 8th and 28th respectively.
Herbie (4th) and Jamal (10th), and Evie (5th) and Elsa (9th) made the top 10 for the U13s, both taking team bronze for Uxbridge.
Khalid (10th), Aneirin (21st) and Arthur (26th) helped secure valuable points for the Junior Men who were 4th team on the day and 4th in the league so far.
Lyra (7th), Monika (10th) and Alexia (17th) coming in the top 20 for the Junior Women who took the team bronze on the day, maintaining 3rd in the league so far as well.
Post race photo taken, celebrations then continued in the Queen’s Head with damp toes being warmed by the odd glass of mulled wine. Fingers are firmly crossed for another strong turnout for the next fixture in the new year. See you all for the fourth fixture in Welwyn Garden City.
