The first cross country league race of the season was at Cheshunt on Sunday. 27 Fairlands Valley Spartans were there – 18 men and 9 women.
Andrew Patterson WON the race in just 26 minutes 36 seconds. JONATHAN PARR and ADRIAN BUSOLINI were also in the top ten. Jonathan sixth with 27:20 and Adrian ninth with 28:12.
GEORGIE HOOPER was the fastest female from Fairlands at 135th overall (women and men) and 18th woman of 133 with 37 minutes 7 seconds. Next came TRACEY JACKSON 207th (and 43rd woman) in 39:47. There were 359 finishers.
Counting teams consisted of five women and eight men. The Spartan women and men were both seventh out of the 21 clubs participating.
| Overall Position | Name | Time | Category |
| 1 | ANDREW PATTERSON | 26:38 | M40 |
| 6 | JONATHAN PARR | 27:27 | SM |
| 9 | ADRIAN BUSOLINI | 28:13 | SM |
| 31 | GRANT RAMSAY | 30:36 | M50 |
| 45 | NICK GILL | 31:30 | SM |
| 85 | ALEX ZHERDEV | 34:00 | M40 |
| 97 | STUART ARCHER | 34:32 | SM |
| 126 | FRANCOIS SWANEPOEL | 36:28 | M50 |
| 133 | DANNY SCANLON | 36:58 | M40 |
| 177 | BRIAN WHITE | 38:57 | M60 |
| 178 | THOMAS SAUKA | 38:57 | M40 |
| 203 | DARREN EMMERSON | 39:57 | M50 |
| 285 | DAVID ACKERY | 45:06 | SM |
| 293 | JON SYPULA | 45:56 | M40 |
| 299 | MALC MacDONALD | 46:14 | M50 |
| 302 | MARK FREEMAN | 46:29 | M60 |
| 321 | ANDY JAY | 48:05 | M50 |
| 325 | TIM ROBINSON | 48:44 | M50 |
| Overall Position | Women Position | Name | Time | Category |
| 135 | 18 | GEORGIE HOOPER | 37:18 | W35 |
| 207 | 43 | TRACEY JACKSON | 40:01 | W45 |
| 279 | 79 | WENDY THARANI | 44:29 | W45 |
| 291 | 85 | ANNA SWANEPOEL | 45:47 | W35 |
| 313 | 98 | CLAIRE EMMERSON | 47:28 | W45 |
| 338 | 115 | LIZ CROWLEY | 50:11 | SW |
| 341 | 118 | SHARON CROWLEY | 51:47 | W65 |
| 349 | 125 | NIKKI NATION | 54:01 | W55 |
| 353 | 128 | CALLIE CHAPMAN | 58:10 | W35 |
Chester Marathon
Coach John Harris was selected to represent England V’s Wales in an International match at the Chester Marathon. Following a recent injury John only decided 10 days before the race to take up his place.
Here is his story:
I am pleased to say that I finished and left everything out on the course.
Standing on the start line, I literally had no idea how the Chester marathon would pan out for me and decided to get to half way and worry about it then.
I ran how I felt and got to 13.1 in 1.57, and felt surprisingly ok . I then focused on each mile and got to 20 miles in 3.01 and rewarded myself with a 30 second walk.
Unfortunately, through lack of training following my injury (my training consisted of 3 weeks after a 3 month break and a long run of only 10 miles) my legs didn’t want to start again and so the last 10k took 81 mins.
I am delighted with my finish time of 4.22.13 given that 4 weeks ago I couldn’t run.
Not an ideal training plan but I wanted to start and see what happened. So glad that I did!
Yuko Gets A Call Up
There were perfect weather conditions for the Bath Half Marathon but Spartan YUKO GORDON said she still felt weak from her recent Covid infection and lacked her usual second half strength. Yuko was fine when she passed 10K in 46:30 but was disappointed with her finishing time of 1 hour 40 minutes 35 seconds. However that was good enough to win her age category. She’s going to have a good rest for a while.
Yuko has received news from British Masters that she has been selected for the England cross country team for the British and Irish international cross country championship to be held in Glasgow next month.
Parkrun Saturday 14th October
Please click the link to view the Consolidated Results