Julie Backley takes Gold and it's Team Gold for the W55.
The Masters Ladies: Sue, Sally, Monica, Marian, Julie, Rose, Christine, Katie
There was a good turnout of Masters Women at Dartford on Saturday. The standout performance came from Julie Backley who took the individual W45 title. The W45 team was completed by Sally Carr (26th) and Marian Hine (35th) for fifth place overall.
Julie Backley with Katie Sanders behind
The W55 were not to be outdone - team gold! Sue Dixon proved that she has recovered from injury by coming second. Next was Rose Baker (6th) who then ran straight on to the station barely taking the time to change her spikes so she could make the matinee at a West End theatre. The final scorer was Christine Bond (7th) who really shouldn’t have been running as she is injured but won’t be stopped. Our fourth runner was Monica Whitefield (12th).
Team Gold - Capt Sue collects the medals
Katie Sanders had a great run in the W35 to take sixth place but unfortunately we had no one to back her up. Maybe next year!
The ladies race of 5.4km had easily the largest field of the day as it included not only all four of the ladies age categories but the oldest two men's categories too. In the M60 we had five runners: Martin Hawkins (13th) and Clem Dixon (15th) were backed up by Mick Ellsmore (24th) for 5th team with Ian McCarthy (28th) and James Rooks (35th) also running. In the M70 Peter Hadley (9th) was our only runner.
Video of our W35, W45, W55 and M60s. We are all in there somewhere!
Earlier in the day our M50 team competed over the longer distance of 8.7km. Scoring is for teams of four in this one and four is what we had: Christian Poulton (12th), Graham Maynard (26th) and Ian Miller (31st) were backed up by Paul Warricker gamely getting round in 83rd knowing that he was needed to complete the team which finished 6th.
Christian Poulton
Graham Maynard
Ian Miller
In the last race of the day for the M40 category, also of 8.7km, we had just two runners: Mark Penny (22nd) and Peter St-Amour (40th).
It was good to see some new faces among all the usual suspects: Paul Warricker has been a regular in Glynis Penny's training group at the track for ages but was running in a Cambridge vest for the first time and James Rooks was also running in a Cambridge vest, not for the first time but for the first time in over 35 years. Welcome back James!