It was another glorious day for cross country as the sun shone down on the Valley men’s team to inspire them to 3rd place in the Liddiard Trophy and 5th place in the North of the Thames cross country championships at Fryent Park on Saturday.
James Tomlinson makes a good return to the team and is first Valley man home in 18th place. Valley runners ready to race.
The TVH men once again showed good numbers with a 10 man team competing against a total of 8 other teams and 132 finishing athletes in the race.
The Liddiard Trophy race has long been held at Fryent Park in Kingsbury, near Wembley, and hosted by Queens Park Harriers, though this year it was once again joined by the North of the Thames Cross Country Champs, with both races being run together as one race.
Fryent Park is a large and scenic country park and provided a good 8km course for the men’s race, in which they ran 1 short lap followed by 2 long laps around the outside of the park over undulating grassland, which included a fast downhill at the start and 2 good hill climbs on the long laps before a sprint to the finish on level playing fields.
With warm and dry weather and little wind it felt more like a late summer’s day than an autumn cross country, which helped to ensure a good sized field of 132 athletes for the men’s race.
As the race got underway it was clear that there were some quality runners at the front and with this in mind James Tomlinson made a steady start for the Valley, with this being his first race back in a Valley vest for nearly 2 years.
This proved to be a good move as James steadily moved up through the field throughout the race to be the first Valley man home in 18th place in a time of 28m 22s for the 8k course, in what was a welcome return to the team and good return to form.
Not far behind James was Manuel da Silva in 29th place in a time of 28m 59s, which showed the continued improvement that Manuel is making race by race as he races himself back to full fitness.
Another Valley man racing himself into good form was Charlie Morris who came home in 36th place with a time of 29m 32s, an encouraging run from Charlie and he should only get quicker this season.
The first home for the Valley vets was Mike Wilson, who after a disappointing race in the Abingdon marathon the previous weekend put all his marathon training to good use with a very good run to finish in 54th place in a time of 30m 46s.
Next in saw a very close finish between Richard Bell and Richard Hooley, with Richard Hooley having lead for most of the race it was Richard Bell who just nipped ahead going up the hill on the final lap to finish in 72nd place in a time of 32m 30s, with Richard Hooley just 1 place and 2 seconds behind in 73rd.
Jason Sewards and Scott Brewer once again showed that hard work and good training is paying off, as they both continue to improve race by race and it was Jason who made it home as 7th scorer for the team in 95th place in a time of 34m 45s, with Scott 8th scorer for the team in 100th place with a time of 35m 19s.
It was then down to Richard Charney and Nick Michael to complete the 10 man team, and both worked hard until the finish line with Richard in 118th place in 39m 46s and Nick in 123rd in 40m 45s.
The women’s race took place half an hour ahead of the men’s race and consisted of 1 short lap and 1 long lap to give a race distance of just under 5km.
Joanna Mobed was the Valley’s only runner on the day, but she flew the flag for the women’s team with a very good run to finish well inside the top 10 in 7th place in a time of 18m 52s, just 21 seconds off 3rd place and an individual medal.
After all the races were finished it was a long and drawn out process waiting for the final race positions and team results to be worked out, so long in fact that only the team results for the North of the Thames Champs were announced and not those for the Liddiard Trophy.
With only 6 to score for the North of the Thames Champs the Valley men finished as 5th placed team out of a total of 9 finishing teams.
It was 8 to score for the Liddiard Trophy and this placed the Valley men in 3rd place out of 8 teams and won them bronze team medals, a great result, well done!
However, as the result hadn’t been given out after the race the Valley men’s team went home not knowing that they’d won bronze medals and it was a shame that the medals couldn’t have been presented on the day.
But this did mean that there was a nice surprise in store the following day when the final results came out!
Congratulations and thanks to all the team on the day, including Richard Charney and Nick Michael, who were very unlucky to miss out on a medal as 9th and 10th scorers for the team.
The cross country season now moves on to Stevenage for the 2nd Met League race on Saturday November 8th, and good luck to those travelling to the National XC Relays at Mansfield the week before.
