Lyndon Collins won the January handicap having last won one in January 2003. Details are here.
David Lee was the fastest runner as Simon Hallpike won the final race and the 2015 series. The details are here.
The fifth race in the Kent Fitness League Cross Country series took place in Meopham on Sunday December 20th, with a field of over 400 runners, writes Jim Knight.
Another fine run from Sevenoaks AC athlete James Mason saw him home in 2nd place behind Thanet Road Runners' Noel Sutton. "I could beat him on the twisty sections through the woods," said Mason, "but he was very fast on the flat open section. He pulled away on the second lap and I couldn't catch him"
With 5 races of the 7 completed, Sutton has three wins and Mason two, so we are guaranteed and exciting finish to the series.
Sevenoaks AC managed to field a strong team of 36 runners to take on the muddy two lap 5 mile course cross-country course, which features the famous "water splash" – especially deep this year after the recent rain.
There were excellent scoring performances from Darrell Smith (13th), Andy Ashlee (39th), Edmund Saunders (41st), and Andrew Mead (42nd). The club's top two M50s, Chris Desmond and Steve Searby, lying 3rd and 4th in their category in the series, were both unavailable. However their replacements, James Graham, the leading M60 ran well to come 87th, and John Stevens came a creditable 108th.
Once again Cath Linney led the women's team home with a storming finish, overtaking two other women in the final stage to finish in 10th place (2nd W45, and another top 10 finish in the women's category). The club's other scorers were Annabelle Milne in 20th and Sally Mortleman (30th), who was unable to wear spikes due to a slight niggle and had to contend with very slippery conditions with less than ideal footwear, but ran brilliantly in the circumstances to keep the team's chances alive in the competition.
Both Dartford Harriers and Dartford Road Runners were out in force, but the strong performances by the Sevenoaks team keep the club in 3rd position in the series. On the day, the Sevenoaks AC men and women were both fifth with the combined team fourth. After five races the men are fourth, the women fifth and the combined team third.
The Kent Fitness League is a series of cross-country races between the 18 registered Athletics Clubs in Kent. Any number of club members can compete, but 10 are needed to score in the team competition – 7 men (of whom two must be V50 and one V40) and 3 women (of whom one must be V45 and one V35).
The next race will be in Minnis Bay on January 10th, starting at 11 am.
The full Sevenoaks AC results were:
Ov Pos | Lg Pos | Runner | Age | Time | Club | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2 | 2 | James Mason | 32 | 29:39 | Sevenoaks AC | 99.67 |
13 | 13 | Darrell Smith | 48 | 31:20 | Sevenoaks AC | 96.09 |
39 | 39 | Andy Ashlee | 46 | 33:34 | Sevenoaks AC | 87.62 |
41 | 41 | Edmund Saunders | 33 | 33:41 | Sevenoaks AC | 86.97 |
42 | 42 | Andrew Mead | 47 | 33:47 | Sevenoaks AC | 86.64 |
47 | 46 | Joe Parsons | 25 | 34:03 | Sevenoaks AC | 85.34 |
50 | 49 | Andrew Milne | 33 | 34:07 | Sevenoaks AC | 84.36 |
70 | 65 | Daniel Witt | 40 | 34:50 | Sevenoaks AC | 79.15 |
87 | 82 | James Graham | 62 | 35:54 | Sevenoaks AC | 73.62 |
108 | 100 | John Stevens | 54 | 37:10 | Sevenoaks AC | 67.75 |
111 | 102 | Tex Ryan | 25 | 37:16 | Sevenoaks AC | 67.10 |
114 | 10 | Cath Linney | 46 | 37:22 | Sevenoaks AC | 93.28 |
130 | 117 | Tony Waldron | 48 | 38:01 | Sevenoaks AC | 62.21 |
133 | 118 | Ted Scott | 56 | 38:06 | Sevenoaks AC | 61.89 |
140 | 125 | James Baker | 51 | 38:14 | Sevenoaks AC | 59.61 |
169 | 20 | Annabelle Milne | 36 | 39:10 | Sevenoaks AC | 85.82 |
182 | 158 | Allan McPherson | 29 | 39:40 | Sevenoaks AC | 48.86 |
201 | 171 | Alan Lewis | 49 | 40:54 | Sevenoaks AC | 44.63 |
203 | 173 | Andy Evans | 45 | 40:56 | Sevenoaks AC | 43.97 |
207 | 177 | John Denyer | 67 | 41:01 | Sevenoaks AC | 42.67 |
209 | 179 | Tony Horlock | 55 | 41:03 | Sevenoaks AC | 42.02 |
210 | 180 | Duncan Cochrane | 58 | 41:04 | Sevenoaks AC | 41.69 |
215 | 30 | Sally Mortleman | 50 | 41:18 | Sevenoaks AC | 78.36 |
225 | 193 | Simon Hallpike | 62 | 41:38 | Sevenoaks AC | 37.46 |
233 | 200 | Robert Evans | 41 | 42:10 | Sevenoaks AC | 35.18 |
237 | 34 | Katie Wills | 27 | 42:27 | Sevenoaks AC | 75.37 |
299 | 241 | Lyndon Collins | 65 | 45:21 | Sevenoaks AC | 21.82 |
303 | 59 | Sophie Lamb | 24 | 45:31 | Sevenoaks AC | 56.72 |
309 | 246 | Maurice Marchant | 67 | 45:50 | Sevenoaks AC | 20.20 |
347 | 267 | Lionel Stielow | 67 | 48:25 | Sevenoaks AC | 13.36 |
359 | 84 | Happy Fisher | 39 | 49:25 | Sevenoaks AC | 38.06 |
367 | 89 | Sam Znetyniak | 40 | 50:00 | Sevenoaks AC | 34.33 |
369 | 90 | Becca Smithers | 55 | 50:09 | Sevenoaks AC | 33.58 |
382 | 283 | James Fitzmaurice | 73 | 51:03 | Sevenoaks AC | 8.14 |
389 | 103 | Jenny Austin | 38 | 51:50 | Sevenoaks AC | 23.88 |
404 | 294 | Peter Nuttall | 43 | 53:39 | Sevenoaks AC | 4.56 |
The full results are here.
Despite some key runners having to drop out before the races, Sevenoaks AC fielded full teams in both the M60 and M40 categories at a very windy Kent County Masters Cross Country Championships at Sparrows Den, West Wickham on Saturday 5th December.
But the first race of the day was the M50 event over about 9k, in which Chris Desmond and John Stevens were contesting the individual places without their usual teammate Keith Dowson, with whom they've been in or close to the medals in recent years. Both men ran well in a very high quality race with Chris finishing 12th and John 32nd. Ben Reynolds of Tonbridge AC won the race by over a minute and half.
The M60 race was run together with all three women's categories and the M70+ group. The shorter course was described as 5,430 metres on the course map but in practice seemed shy of 3 miles at 4.75k. Again standards were very high, so that Kent Fitness XC League M60 leader James Graham was seventh despite running very well. Backed up by Geoff Vine in 26th and Simon Hallpike in 27th, the M60 Sevenoaks AC team came up just short of the medals in fourth. In a tight finish, Jeremy Carnell of Cambridge Harriers won the race by one second from John Harley of Tonbridge.
There were no team awards for the M70+ group in which SAC was represented by Ron Denney and M80 Richard Pitcairn-Knowles. Ron was our first finisher in that category in 5th place with RPK seventh.
The final race of the day featured the M40s over the same course as the M50s and was again a top class race. Like the M50 race, the winner, Christopher Greenwood of Kent AC, was over one and a half minutes clear. Andrew Mead was our leading runner in 25th with Dan Witt 35th, followed closely by Nick Humphrey-Taylor 40th with Tony Waldron 64th. A strong performance on the day for tenth team.
The full results are here.