We made a low-key outing to the Fraternity and Sorority Cross Country Cup meetings at Trent Park last Saturday, but there were some good individual performances from those who took part. This fixture is unusual in that men and women run together over the same 5-mile course. Women have few races over this longer distance before the key championships in the New Year, so this was a good opportunity to test themselves.
The going was firm in a venue often characterised by very muddy conditions. Mo Hashi (6th) and Luke Nicholas (7th) led the way for ESM’s men, Mo finishing in 28.43 and Luke just 12 seconds later. The two tackled the race rather differently though. Mo went out hard and held third place before being overhauled in the latter stages. Luke set off more cautiously and worked his way through, to achieve his best performance so far this season. Similarly, there were only nine seconds separating 33rd-placed Mark Delahunty (31.28) and Andy Dodd in 34th, though Mark only overtook Andy in the finishing field. Fellow V60s Steve Plested (55th) and Rob Howells (84th) completed the team, which ranked sixth out of twelve in the 6-to-score competition.
The women also fielded just enough runners to close a team. Fiona Kennedy settled into third place early on and finished in 31:49, gaining a bronze medal overall and a silver in the veteran competition. She was backed up by Carol Jones in 11th (38.14), Gill Morgan in 15th (39.36) and Julia Gristwood in 20th (42.50), as the team finished third.
Full results here.
Many club members opted for a race-free weekend, though Pete Drew decided he had a pressing appointment with a parkrun. He did manage a PB of 20:17 though, so perhaps we can forgive him for not donning his spikes on this occasion. Bharati Patel-York also ran a PB of 35:18 – good to see you back in your trainers, Bharati, and that’s a PB in each of your five parkruns to date.