South of England Cross Country Relay Championships

Chiltern Harriers had an excellent day at the SEAA Cross Country Relays at Wormwood Scrubs on Saturday with three teams on the podium. The medals bookended the meeting with U20 Men and U17 Men both winning silvers at the start, and the Senior Men winning bronze at the end. A grey, wet start improved rapidly with later races run in sunshine.

The U17 women were first off and Lydia Cross, coming back after illness, ran consistently as an incomplete team on the 3k circuit in 13.03.
 
The U20 Men and U17 Men ran together, with results separated at the end. The Chiltern U20s were always in the mix with Archie Pinder (9.21) and Euan Pinder (9.31) bringing the team home in fourth at the end of each leg. Leon Doran took over and ran a superb leg of 8.58 to bring the team into second, just ten seconds behind the winners. Leon’s time was second fastest of the race.
 
Meanwhile the U17 Men’s A team had a similarly strong trio out. James Holdsworth on leg 1 ran  9.37 to finish sixth and Aidan Suleyman maintained that on leg 2 with 9.42. On a very exciting last leg there were several changes of position and Edward Johnson’s 9.27 was a great run to move up into silver. There were two other Chiltern U17 teams and the B team had a great start thanks to Callum Powell’s 9.43, followed by Jack Turner (10.32) and Rory Hilton (10.46). The Bs finished 14th. An incomplete C team featured good efforts from Zach Cleary (10.34) and Charlie De Sousa (11.21).
 
The U13 Girls saw two Chiltern girls competing and Emilia Ingham (8.55) and Lotti Monnington (9.31) both had good runs on the shorter 2k route. The U13 Boys had two full teams, and one incomplete team. The A team did very well to be seventh thanks to Jack Rogers (7.40), Harrison Lawrence (8.02) and Zac Taylor (8.09). Issac Brown (8.00), Hector Gamblen (8.07) and Thomas Cooper (8.51) were the B team that finished 12th, and Harry Reeder (8.25) and Jack Dixon (9.31) were an incomplete C team.
 
Nia Clarke (8.36) and Megan Lockwood (8.31) were the two U15 girls in action. The U15 Boys had an inexperienced A team out but Ben Reeder (7.34), James Henderson (7.49) and Kit Dixon (8.11) all ran well for 25th. Isaac McCall (8.19) and Jacob McCall (8.38) were an incomplete B team.
 
For the first time Chiltern got two full Senior Men’s teams out at this event. The course was two of the 2k laps, which ended up about 4.3k, further than the usual one lap 4k circuit. Simon Bossi led off in what was by now bright sunshine. Simon’s 13.41 brought the team home in 8th and Aran Davidson kept the momentum going with 14.08 on leg 2. A few teams well up on legs 1 and 2 were incomplete so the front of the race thinned out, and Angus Williams found himself in third on leg 3. Angus’s 13.54 gave Cameron Reid a buffer. Cam ran well on leg 4 for 14.02 to hold onto bronze. The B team also did well with James Turner (14.57), Alex Aldred (14.00), Tom Dixon (15.23) and Jonny Slade (16.23) finishing 12th.