Sweatshop Men's Surrey CC League, Division One Race 1, Brockwell Park
Second place at Brockwell Park
“Looks like we’re going to have a picnic,” said Rob Harding, when he showed up with his family and saw the cool bags and cake boxes stacked at the foot of the Belgrave flag. Afterwards, maybe, but the race was no picnic as Herne Hill slammed all-comers on their home turf.
Several days of heavy rain had failed to do more than encourage the grass to grow, and on the lush Brockwell Park sward, in brilliant sunshine, around 170 runners charged away from the start. The course had been extended a little to make it a full five miles this year.
John Kimaiyo and Malachi Byansi led up the slope but as soon as the top had been gained it was Jermaine Mays, in South London’s colours, in the front – and he stayed there for the next half hour. Dave Anderson chased hard to start with but having just had a cold found himself engulfed in a wave of dizziness that he couldn’t shake off – and wisely came out just before the end of the first lap when lying in second place.
“Sharpy” was not to be found in his normal front rank position. He was using the race as a training run and attempting to keep his heart rate below 175 before letting rip in the last 15 minutes. But not far away was Richard Stannard, World Aquathlon Champion from Lausanne a few weeks back and starting a winter of cross country in a quest to get his 5k time down to 14:30 next summer. The Skipper and Mike Trees were also in the vicinity so the scoring position wasn’t too bad but it was obvious that Herne Hill were on their way to a win.
Into the second lap then. Stephen Sharp pulled back places but while Malachi and John Kimaiyo held their positions, Richard found himself under attack from Will Cockerell and then Mike Trees, as he faded towards the end of the race. Good to see that Knut Hegvold has shaken off his foot injury – but then a little gap until juniors Alex Bodin (non-scoring) and James Fairbourn came through. James has recently started at Loughborough University but says he has every intention of getting back for each of the league races.
Soon the leaders were approaching the finish. Stephen was into 4th … and then 3rd as he overtook McFarlane of Thames but then ran out of race before Herne Hill’s Dave Taylor could be reached. Each of the others more or less held their positions with another astonishing performance from Malachi. Completing the ten it was Warren Lynch and - would you believe it – Rob Harding. Apologies to Robert Norville, who ran a good race and went away thinking he’d made the scorers for the first time.
Among the rest of our 21 starters, Peter Cross made a rare and welcome excursion onto the country, Tim Weeks began his climb back to fitness after months of inactivity and our President Dave McMillan celebrated his election to high office with two energetic laps of Brockwell Park.
As is often the case, we’ve given ourselves a fair old handicap if we have any intentions of winning the league – we were exactly double the winning team’s score. But if it was a lackadaisical day for the Bels it was doubly so for Thames who found themselves behind Ranelagh for the first time in many seasons.
In the youngsters' race Joseph Taylor-Holland was our sole representative. We had hoped for more to back him up - but somehow they didn't materialize. He might have been on his own but as last year's individual U13 winner, Joe looks set to make a big impact in the U15s this time around.
1 J Mays (South London) 25:58; 2 D Taylor M40 (Herne Hill) 26:23; 3 S Sharp (Belgrave) 26:37; 14 J Kimaiyo 27:51; 15 M Byansi 27:57; 17 W Cockerell 28:00; 20 M Trees M40 28:09; 21 R Stannard 28:15; 33 K Hegvold M40 29:05; 47 (guest) A Bodin (U20) 29:48; 57 (scoring 52) J Fairbourn U20 30:15; 68 (62) W Lynch 30:32; 89 (77) R Harding M40 31:37; 97 R Norville 31:57; 99 S Zealey (M40) 32:09; 122 T Weeks 33:56; 128 M Taylor (M40) 34:18; 139 P Cross (M50) 35:36; 140 H Corbett (M40) 35:41; 154 L Rehn (M40) 38:07; 157 D McMillan (M50) 40:08; 162 finished; dnf D Anderson; S Baxendale.
1 Herne Hill H 157; 2 Belgrave H 314; 3 Ranelagh H 378; 4 Thames H&H 395; 5 South London H 452; 6 Stragglers 499; 7 Guildford &G 604; 8 Reigate Priory 607; 9 Dulwich R 689.
Under 15. 1 T Nunn (Ranelagh) 15:44; 6 J Taylor-Holland 16:37.
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.