Auckland Castle 10km inc. AAA & CAU Inter-County Champs
Pipped by Morpeth again
The long haul to the North East for the Auckland Castle and AAA 10k, closely co-operating with the Surrey team for the Inter-County race, was another enjoyable experience. Once again the men were just pipped for the AAA team race and it was silver again - our fourth consecutive year as medallists. The Belles were also into the hardware, gaining a surprising set of bronze awards. And with both our teams heavily involved in the scoring for the Inter-County titles, there were yet more medals as the Surrey men placed 3rd and the women 2nd.
We like winning, of course, but one of the most pleasing thing these days is that we ride our bad luck and still make a great contribution to the race. Birhan Dagne was unable to stay the course, coming out at 4k, David Anderson is continually troubled by his Achilles tendon problem and was another dnf (can't say we ever remember that happening before) while Mark Miles was unable to start due to a tendon problem of his own; but for these misfortunes it could have been double team win.
The men's team race was so tight that had it been calculated on accumulated times, as many races are these days, we would have won - exactly the same situation as with the AAA 5k a month or so earlier. Of course some other time this type of scoring could work to our advantage, but looking at the women's team results one can see that the team places were calculated on actual race positions - including men, guests, overseas competitors, etc. Where so many categories are included within the one event, accumulated times have got to be the fairest way of doing things.
Full result
Men. 1 M Kogo (Kenya) 28:49; 2 P Riley AAA-1st (Leigh) 28:54; 14 K Tadesse 30:31; 21 T Watson 31:11; 22 H Raidi 31:24; 24 A Stewart 31:38; 40 W Cockerell 33:08; D Anderson and A Swearman dnf.
Teams: AAA 1 Morpeth (11, 13, 26) 50; 2 Belgrave (14, 21, 22) 57; 3 Norfolk Gazelles (96, 113, 183) 119.
Inter-County. 1 North East 50; 2 Leicester 56; 3 Surrey 60.
Women. 1 O Kimayio (Kenya) 32:45; 2 N Harvey AAA-1st (South London) 33:15; 7 G Phillips (Kendal) 35:13; 14 D Lee (Bristol & West) 37:21; 18 T Heaton 37:53; 25 H Smethurst (1st W40) 39:35; 43 L Cooper 43:34; B Dagne dnf.
Teams: AAA 1 City of Norwich (78, 97, 112) 295; 2 Wrexham (99, 109, 111) 316; 3 Belgrave (96, 113, 183) 388.
Inter-County. 1 Lancashire 232; 2 Surrey 268; 3 North East 287.
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.