The first three positions in our “Club 10” all went to guest runners. First was William Cole of Runhead who had only only come 11th at the Club 5, second was Mike Daly’s mate Andrew Moulden (get him to join us Mike!), and third was Bexley’s Simon Wells going one better than the fourth places he recorded in both the 5 and the 7.5.
David Reader in fourth spot was the first Cambridge Harrier home and gets to keep the impressive silver trophy associated with this event for the next year (for the third time). David was closely followed by Christian Poulton who took the silver medal, it was Christian who took up the early running but David (plus dog Mabel) gradually reeled him in to win by 4 seconds. Warren Mills in 12th place overall won the bronze medal.
It was a similar story in the women’s race with the top three positions all being taken by guest runners: Nicole Bygrave (Plumstead) and Sally Kyle (Central Park Athletic) are regulars at these races and were first and second, third place being taken by newcomer Liz Pepper of Crystal Palace Fun Runners.
This was the final race in the series so we also awarded a trophy to the best Club performer over all three races. After his 3rd and 6th places in the first two events I had thought that all that Luke Ford needed to do was to show up to win this, but he had what was by his standards a poor run and finished well down the field in 20th. So I had to dust off the overly complex formula that I devised some years ago to check the result before confirming that Luke had indeed won by a narrow margin from Graham Maynard.
As always it was nice to welcome so many friends both old and new from neighbouring clubs back to our Bexley clubhouse after the race.