19 of us enjoyed a good race round the Meadows, many thanks to Phil Pape and his army of enthusiastic volunteers for all their support.
For middle distance runners to use cross country races as a way of building up endurance is not unheard of but we were all surprised to learn that GB international Jake Wightman (2nd in the UK rankings at 1500m this year) had turned up wearing at Dartford Harriers vest. And I thought that he was Scottish! What was even more surprising is that he didn’t win: another track specialist, Tonbridge’s Ryan Driscoll, also decided to make a first cross country appearance of the year. News had obviously spread of Phil’s masterful course design! Over 1500m on a track Wightman is 12 seconds faster than Driscoll but over 10k of the Footscray mud, tussocks and molehills Driscoll won by 29 seconds.
Bayley Massey was our first finisher in 19th, with James MacDonald, Steve Hodges and Steve Groom taking the four to score team to 5th. This time it was Jerry Carnell in 173rd position (and 2nd V60) who had the honour of being our 12th man home taking the twelve to score to another 5th place.
With three of the four races in the league completed Bayley is 6th in the individual table and James is 17th. We are 5th in both of the team tables with Dartford having their best season for a long while in 3rd, perhaps we need to get better at finding ringers?