Cross Country round up – Met League, Liddiard Trophy, NW London YA League

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Start Fitness Metropolitan League 2nd Fixture, Saturday 11th Nov 2018   Welwyn Garden City

It was a great day for TVH with three race winners in the 2nd Met League fixture  – Petros Surafel and Tracy Barlow in the senior races and Skye Bishop in the U11 Girls race. Skye and Tracy both had to contend with the perils of leading their races with unclear course markings and Petros had the torrential rain and hailstones to contend with during the men’s race.   For a change this season the young athletes had the best of the conditions for the early races on the testing course in Stanborough Park.

Cambridge Univ traditionally compete in the 2nd Met League fixture as a warm up for their competition with Oxford and the guest runners added quality to the front of the field in the senior races and contributed to a record number of 1200+ runners.   After his great 10 mile pb of 48:05 at the Great South Run on 21st Oct, Petros was the class runner in the field and duly delivered a great run in much different conditions. Abdi Mohamed and Michael Cameron were the next TVH runners to finish, with the men now well placed in the team competition.

The day started well for TVH in the younger age groups,  Skye has won the first two Met League races and was a clear winner in the U11 Girls race after negotiating being sent off course near the end of the race. Reggie Rock finished  strongly in the U11 Boys race for 4th place after three runners got away from him early in the race and Ollie Seraj also had a great run to finish 12th. Anna Kelly had her best race to date finishing 9th in the U13 Girls race, well supported by the fast finishing Olivia Sparks, Thea Almqvist-Dutton and Sofia Cappelli.  Newcomer to the team Bronte Bennett is running as a second claim member and we welcome her to the team.

Max Bishop continued his return to fitness with a spirited run holding on well  for 11th in the U13 Boys race ahead of Sol Inglis in 12th and Cameron McConnon in 13th. It was a shame that Morris Rock had an injury and was unable to take part. Even so, Woodford Green had a full team finish in the first 10. With 74 finishers this was a great effort by the Valley boys.

Charlotte Buckley is working on her endurance with a cross country season this winter and the 4.4km course was a relatively long run for Charlotte, who finished a comfortable 2nd in the U15 / U17 race closing on the winner (who won the first fixture at Woodford by more than a minute) at the end of the race. Jasmine Palmer  finished 6th overall and 3rd U15 in the first Met League at Woodford and with Charlotte and other good runners in this race, 5th overall and just beaten for first U15 it was an even better race from Jasmine. Under 17, Melina Duer also had a good race to finish 20th. In 28th place, Olivia Colegrave also did well and was the 14th  U15 to finish. After a Lacrosse game in the morning, Lily Dafter had her best run for a while when she finished 35th. Two places behind her, Zenia Gordon has also got her act together this season and finished only two places behind Lily. Maisie Hugill had a good first lap of the two lap course but faded on the second. As this was her first serious race of the season, she’ll soon improve with practice.

Unfortunately our under 15/17 boys team only had two runners. Basil Rock was unhappy that he wasn’t at his best and complained that he was aching all over! This meant the Joseph Nixon had a target to follow and finished only four places behind in 68th place. Not bad, as there were 99 runners in this event. The strongest young athletes race of the day.

Young Athletes Results:

U11Boys  4 R Rock 5:53,  12 O Seraj 6:22.                                                 U11Girls  1 S Bishop 6:01.                                                                                       U13 Boys  11 M Bishop 12:18; 12 S Inglis 12:23; 13 C McConnon 12:25.                                                                                                                                  U13 Girls  9 A Kelly 13:32; 15 O Sparks 13:35; 19 T Almqvist-Dutton 14:06;. Team 3/18.    23 S Coppelli 14:25; 42 B Bennett 15:27.                                                                                                                                      U15 / U17 Boys  64 B Rock 17:31; 68 J Nixon 17:43.                             U15 / U17Girls  2 C Buckley 16:13; 5 J Palmer 16:58; 20 M Duer 18:24; 28 O Colegrave 19:17. Team 2/20.   35 L Dafter 19:42; 37 Z Gordon 19:49; 42 M Hugill 20:17.

Full Results at    http://www.metleague.co.uk/results

National Cross Country Relay  Mansfield  Saturday 3rd November 2018

TVH had three men’s teams competing in the national cross country relay championships, with teams of 4 runners competing over the 5km course.   The TVH ‘A’ team of Hugo Cayssials, Sayed Yusuf, Petros Surafel and Mo Aadan finished 12th out of the 150+ teams to finish, with Petros and Mo amongst the fastest times of the day.  The ‘B’ team finished in 55th place with Michael Cameron running the fastest leg and the ‘C’ team finished 104th with Robert Vallance running  the quickest leg.

Results:      12th  1:03:32  TVH  ‘A’ Hugo Cayssials, Sayed Yusuf, Petros Surafel, Mo Aadan                                                                                        55th  1:09:53  TVH ‘B’  Todd Oates, Daniel Garcia Rasines, Oli Newton,  Michael Cameron                                                                                         104th 1:18:27 TVH ‘C’  Jibrel Ahmed, Phil Wetton, Steve Norris, Rob Vallance

Liddiard Trophy / North of the Thames Championships

It was a successful day for the TVH men, winning both the Liddiard Trophy with 8 to score and the North of the Thames Trophy.  Abdi Mohamed was in 2nd place on the last lap before taking a wrong turning, but was still the first TVH runner home in 7th place. Abdi was followed by Daniel Garcia Rasines finishing strongly in 9th place, Jake Hooley (on a brief visit back from university) in 12th and Naol Abagibe in 20th place and 4th veteran.

TVH – A Team      7   Abdiqadir Mohamed  25:46,  9  Daniel Garcia Rasines 26:20,  12  Jake Hooley 26:38,   20  Naol Abagibe 27:27,  27 Todd Oates 28:15,  30  Charles McFadzean   28:25, 42  Manuel da Sliva    29:29,    61   Jibrel Ahmed 30:25.

Amelia Casey won the U20 competition finishing in 9th place in the Women’s race with Rosie Vallance 2nd U20 in 15th place ahead of Fran Lou and Christine Munden in the 4 to score team. 

Full results at                                                                                            http://www.british-athletics.co.uk/results/2018/nott_lid/

NORTH WEST LONDON YA LEAGUE.  MATCH 2,  Kingsbury –Saturday 28th October 2018

Due to the very congested fixtures it was decided to hold three events together at Fryant park on Saturday. Our Under 17 women competed in the North of the Thames Championships while also taking part in the North West London YA League. This was very beneficial to TVH as we had a big turn-out running in both races.

Winning both races, Charlotte Buckley came away as the winner of the North of the Thames championships with Sarah Kebbell finishing second in each event they will receive medals from the North of the Thames. Also running in both events, Melina Duer had her best race so far this season and finished fourth, Niamh Murphy was sixth and Capucine Rousset eighth. There were 18 in the race.

After the first cold morning of the winter the North West London Under 11 Girls had a great start to the day when Skye Bishop was literally pushed into third place. Newcomer Molly McCormack, understandably very nervous, steadily moved through the field to finish in 11th place. A very good start to her cross country career. Farrah Ceric, still one of the smallest girls in the race had a good race to finish 14th out of 54.

Along with Charlotte, our other winner was Reggie Rock. He was in great form and won the under 11 Boys race by 10 seconds. Enjoying being involved, Ollie Seraj finished in 19th place out of a field of 45.

Maya Sutaria was also up with the leading runners in the Under 13 Girls race and did very well to finish in sixth place. Anna Kelly also had a good run to finish only three places behind her in ninth place in the race with 50 finishers. In the Under 13 Boys event, Morris Rock was also up with the leaders but had a stitch but still managed to finish eighth. Max Bishop was having his first race back this season and ran steadily for his 16th place as he builds up his fitness. Dylan Bilboul performed well for 30th place out of 49 finishers.

For the first time, Zenia Gordon was our first girl home in the Under 15 race. It was very encouraging to see her have such a good race and she was 14th in front of  Lily Dafter who was 16th. Maddie Casey was just another two places back in 18th. There were 23 runners.

After his great fourth place last year, Basil Rock had to settle for 18th  place and was 21 seconds slower this time. Running well this season Charlie Rollo, 21st, was one place in front of  Baqar Abamecha who has greatly improved since last year for his 22nd place. After having to run to the venue to arrive in time, Aidan Ferrand had a good race to finish 29th out of 48 finishers.

In the Under 17 Mens race Shami Umashankar had his usual fast start and led the opening rush but managed to keep in touch and finished a creditable eighth of the 18 finishers.

U11G. Team 2nd.  3 S Bishop 5:49; 11 M McCormack 6:24; 14 F Ceric 6:29.      U11B. Team 5th. 1 R Rock 8:51; 19 O Seraj 10:01.

U13G. Team 6th. 6 M Sutaria 9:16; 9 A Kelly 9:23.    U13B. Team 8th. 8 M Rock 12:15; 16 M Bishop 12:38; 38 D Bilboul 14:00.

U15G. Team 6th. 14 Z Nelson 13:42; 16 L Dafter 13:47; 18 M Casey 13:59.

U17W. Team 1st. 1 C Buckley 13:56; 2 S Kebbell 14:25; 4 M Duer 15:11; 6 N Murphy 15:23; 8 C Rousset 16:09.                                     U17M.  8 S Umashankar 16:59.