Fairlands Valley Spartans gave their promotion hopes a tremendous boost in the first race of this year’s evening Mid Week League. They were second overall with 67 finishers, 38 men and 29 women.
FVS were second with 545 points, just 24 ahead of Royston. Watford appear to have a strong lead of 59 points but they could easily be caught in the coming weeks. The top two clubs will be promoted at the end of the season so the Spartans will be maximising their efforts to maintain that second place, or better.
Altogether there were 538 runners from 15 clubs in the race. The 67 from FVS compares with 65 from Royston; 53 from Barnet and 51 from Watford. In addition to the 67 many other Spartans were volunteers helping to make the event a success.
Stort Five
Fairlands Valley Spartans WON the team prize at Sunday’s Stort Five trail race.
STEVE DOBNER reports: Sunny skies greeted us as we made the short hop over to the Stort5. The event was a sell out with 500 runners entered into the 5 or 10 mile race with 209 runners finishing the 5 mile run. Having run both the 5 & 10 race previously it is now a must in my race diary, it is a friendly and extremely well run event.
A slight delay greeted us at the start line as a local bee keeper decided to open their hives 10 minutes before the scheduled start, a quick route change was arranged (unfortunately leaving the races short of 5 or 10 miles) and we were called back and set off.
The route snakes round Cammas Farm before taking in some lovely trails with two short road sections.
Dave Pattman was first Spartan home, fourth overall in 31:53, Steve Dobner came home in 8th in 33:53 followed by Suzy Hawkins 35:11, Mo Warrillow in 39:24, Nicola Anderson 42:21 and Sue Harmer in 45:53.
With Dave finishing fourth, Steve in 8th and Suzy in 13th Fairlands Valley Spartans won the mixed team event and received their lovely wooden trophies as they watched the 10 mile runners come home.
Parkrun
Please click the link for the Consolidated Club Results for the 20th May 2023