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Mid Week League Races

The Final League table.

The Events

All races start at 7:45 p.m.

The other teams in the same division as us are Bishops Stortford Running Club, Broxbourne Runners, Harlow Running Club, Herts Phoenix A.C., North Herts Road Runners and Shaftesbury & Barnet Harriers; and for the mob match we will also be joined by the teams from the other division, Barnet & District A.C., Garden City Runners, Orion Harriers, Royston Runners, St Albans Striders and Trent Park Running Club.

As runners cross the finish line they are given a ticket with their finishing position on and the cumulative scores of the first 12 men in each team, 6 ladies, 6 male vets and 3 female vets are used to determine league positions. However even where you are not one of the scorers for your own team, if another team has not yet got there full compliment home you worsen their team score by finishing ahead of them, so every runner who takes part can have an influence on the final scores. Plus, for the first time this year, league positions will also include B, C & D ... teams for running clubs where applicable. So if we can get, say, 48 men running, there will be a FVS A, FVS B, FVS C and FVS D in the league table for that race. Similarly, say 30 ladies taking part, will produce a FVS A, B, C, D & E in the ladies league table.

If you would like any further information please do not hesitate to contact Paul Holgate or any of the committee or other coaches, who will only be too happy to help if they can.

Results So Far

Race 1 - Bishops Stortford 14th May
A fantastic turnout with 53 Spartans among the 230 finishers. The men finished 2nd to SBH and the ladies 2nd to NHRR to give us 2nd overall, equal on points with NHRR and only 6 cumulative scoring positions behind them. In the vet leagues the men are in 1st position and the ladies 2nd behind NHRR. The superb turnout meant that we also recorded B & C team results in the open leagues and B,C,D & E teams in the vets leagues and beating some of the other clubs' A teams along the way.

Simon Bell finished 5th overall and 2nd Vet 40. David Bowker was 4th Vet 40 and Ron Cohen 2nd Vet 70. Annette Bell finished 5th lady and 3rd Vet 35. Chris King was 1st Vet 45, Tracy Pez 5th Vet 35 and Chris Feely 4th Vet 45.

There were 16 PB's, 9 further Season Bests (SB's - Best since 1st Jan 2007) and another 4 Year Bests (YB's - Beating a previous best time for 2008).

Very well done to you all.

Click here to view the results

Race 2 - FVS Stevenage 10k 29th May
Another superb turnout and another fantastic result for Fairlands Valley Spartans running club. A massive thank you to everybody who turned up to help marshall and support a very successful evening for the club. As well as the dozens of members and friends & family assisting, we even managed an increased turn out of runners in the race as well - up 13 on Bishops Stortford to an excellent 66 runners.

Once again we finished 2nd behind Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers in the men's race and 2nd behind NHRR in the women's race, to again finish equal overall with NHRR on 12 points, but this time we had the better runners score, beating NHRR race positions by 95 points to win overall on the night. Vet men again finished 1st and vet women 2nd again to NHRR.

Some of the notable individual performances included Simon Bell again first home for the club (despite racing the previous day!) in 11th position overall and 2nd vet 40; Simon Jackson 12th (despite the race being only 4 days after his Edinburgh marathon PB); David Bowker 3rd vet 40. Kath Hardcastle 4th overall in the ladies race with Chris King (who like Simon Jackson and Andrew Patterson was another Spartan racing only 4 days after Edinburgh marathon PB's) 6th and 1st vet 45. Leanne Hyams 8th, Sara O'Callaghan 9th and 3rd vet 35; Tracy Pez 4th vet 35; Rob Shaw 6th vet 60; Christine Feely 4th vet 45; Sharon Crowley 9th vet 45; and, Ron Cohen 2nd vet 70.

There were 16 PBs plus another 10 SBs, including 7 Spartans smashing their previous PB by some enormous margins - Penny Armstrong +4:09, Sara O'Callaghan +3:40, Simon Harris +2:47, Duncan Choosey +2:42, Steve Gough +2:13, Susan Leigh +1:04 and Maria Thorne +0:44, despite the difficulty of the Stevenage course!

Cumulative positions after 2 races show FVS 2nd behind SBH in the men's league, 2nd behind NHRR in the ladies league, 1st in the mens vet league and 2nd behind NHRR in the women's vet league. But best of all, in the overall league table which determines promotion to division 1, we are equal on 24 points with NHRR but with a better total runners score of 89 positions to lead the table overall, and 6 points clear of SBH in 3rd position. Very well done to you all.

Click here to view the results

Race 3 - Welwyn Garden City, 5 miles, 11th June
Turnout up again last night up another 4 finishers on Stevenage to a fantastic 70 Spartans, despite Tracy Pez having to retire injured, Kath Hardcastle unable to run because of a broken leg, Chris Leigh stuck at work and a further 6 other Spartans unable to make the race in the end despite always hoping to have been able to be at WGC.

FVS results continue to go from strength to strength. Having finished 2nd behind NHRR on equal points in race 1 and 1st ahead of NHRR on equal points in race 2, race 3 went one better again beating NHRR on actual points as well as race positions to now top the table by 2 points ahead of NHRR and already guaranteed promotion with one more scoring event still to go.

Once again the men finished 2nd behind Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers, but this time the ladies beat NHRR to give FVS a total score of 13 points on the night compared to 11 for NHRR and 9 for SBH. The ladies vets also beat NHRR vets for the first time and the men's vets finished 1st equal with a very strong Herts Phoenix vets team out on their home course.

Once again their were also some very good individual performances as well. First home for FVS was Richard Bate in 11th position overall, closely followed by Simon Bell 12th position and 3rd vet 40; Simon Jackson 15th, Duncan Choosey 21st and David Bowker 22nd and 5th vet 40. Annette Bell was the first Spartan in the ladies race, 4th overall and 2nd vet 35, with Amanda Brook 6th, Chris King 7th and 1st vet 45, Sara O'Callaghan 9th and 4th vet 35, Christine Feely 3rd vet 45 and Ron Cohen 2nd vet 70.

There were a phenomenal 38 PBs plus another 11 SBs, including Maria Thorne +5:39 , Sara O'Callaghan +4:30, Laura Law +4:20, Jamie Laird +3:51, Richard Sidlin +2:55, Amanda Brook +2:18, Mark Drummond +2:04, Katrina Doyle +1:36, Chris Feely +1:32, Susan Leigh +1:30, Doug Hall +1:30, Iain Boyd +1:29, Bev Aitken +1:19, Monica Brown +0:56, Tricia Hopper +0:52, Chris King +0:45, David Bowker +0:40, Simon Jackson +0:33, Mark Glading +0:33, Alan Donald +0:29, Todd Gray +0:25 and David Clarke +0:12.

Very well done to everybody who took part.

Click here to view the results

Race 4 - NHRR, 10K'ish, 25th June
With the absence of Simon Jackson, Duncan Choosey, Kath Hardcastle, Stuart Hyams and Andrew Garrett, to name but a few, it was always likely that NHRR would close the 2 points league deficit and final positions would become decided on race positions over the series alone, so another huge turnout was essential to protect as much of the 135 race positions advantage built up over the first 3 races as possible. And you all responded fantastically with turnout up again last night - up yet another 5 finishers on WGC to a fantastic 75 Spartans, despite Richard Sidlin and Phil Gale both having to retire injured.

As expected the ladies finished 2nd on the night behind NHRR limiting the race positions deficit to just 11 points, and with SBH unable to field a full team, the men also finished 2nd on the night to NHRR limiting their own point deficit to 106 points, meaning that the total position on the night was 2nd, 2 points behind NHRR and with a race positions deficit of -117, to finish the league tied with NHRR on 49 points overall, but with an all important +18 race positions to win the division overall in the closest finish ever seen in this long running league. +18 on an overall score of 1,864 being less than 1% difference after four highly competitive races. A BIG thank you and well done to all 101 Spartans who contributed over the four races without who this would not have been possible.

The ladies vets finished 1st-equal with NHRR vets and the men's vets finished 2nd to Harlow.

Once again their were also some very good individual performances as well. First home for FVS was Simon Bell 6th position overall and 1st vet 40 despite having already raced 5k only a few hours earlier and having had to then travel down from Birmingham in time for the evening race! Richard Bate was 2nd Spartan to finish, 8th overall in a new PB of 35:59, with David Bowker, Andrew Patterson and Todd Gray all also home in less than 40-minutes. Chris King was the first Spartan in the ladies race, 5th overall and 1st vet 45 in a new PB of 43:16, with Amanda Brook 7th in a new PB of her own of 43:46, Sara O'Callaghan 8th and 3rd vet 35 also in a PB of 44:30, Christine Feely 3rd vet 45, Christine Hardman 4th vet 55 and Ron Cohen 2nd vet 70 in a new Spartan PB of 57:30.

There were also other PBs for David Clarke 45:42, Chris Smyth 47:08, Rob Evans 47:29, Ian King 47:51, Peter O'Reilly 54:25, Penny Armstrong 56:05 and Maria Thorne 62:15, as well as debutees Sean Thompson, Marie Colucci, Chris McCullough, Ben Collier and Eric Stewart - a total of 17 PBs in all plus a further 9 SBs, which given the difficulty of last night's course is very impressive indeed. Full Spartans results and stats attached and while there is more red ink than usual looking at improvements to previous 10k's and comparison to target, given last night's course anything even close to target/previous should be regarded as a success, not least because no modification had been included for course difficulty.

While the scoring races are over, I hope that as many of you as possible will be able to make the final mob-match fixture on the 16th July, not only because it will give us the chance to also run against some of the division 1 runners that we will be competing with next year, but also because the race is followed by the presentation of trophies where, in addition to celebrating our championship and promotion, we also have more than 30 trophies to collect as well - 2nd teams in the male open, female open and female vets, winning male vets team and a number of individual trophies as well.

Click here to view the results

 

The Mob Match, 16th July
28 Spartans last night which was very encouraging. Simon Bell was first to finish, 8th overall and 2nd vet 40, 32:11, followed by Graham Blackburn 36:26 and Ben Harris 38:22. Sara O'Callaghan was first female finisher in 40:39, followed by Tracy Pez, 42:18 and Chris McCullough 45:26. We finished 8th of the 13 teams in the men's race, 8th also in the female race and 7th overall, and were also 6th in the vet men and 5th in the vets ladies. Well done to everybody who took part. Spartan results and stats attached for your enjoyment.

Click here to view the results