Over the final weekend of May another virtual racing event was staged for members of London and Surrey clubs which began as a challenge between two cross country leagues, but was given a late name change to “London Club Mob Match”.
The challenge was for 5 mile time trials or in the case of at least half of the second placed Herne Hill Harriers women’s team, 5 miles of their Sunday long run cropped and uploaded to ensure a complete team of 12. The Harriers men, however, had a total of 11 runners posting their results thereby fell a man short.
The Herne Hill standout performance, indeed the star turn of the entire event was Georgie Grgec whose time of 27:11 placed her first woman by over a minute. Hers was the best performance overall according to the grading system adopted by the organisers OpenTrack.
Georgie was very well backed up by Julia Wedmore 6th woman 31:23, Liv Stillman 8th 31:57, Esme Fillingham 16th 33:34, Suzanne Swaine 20th 33:50, Shannon Sinclair 25th 34:37, Pippa Messenger 32nd 36:17, Karen Ellison 34th 36:37, Hannah Edwards 38th 36:58, Fiona de Mauny 46th 38:30, Nikki Sturzaker 49th 39:16 and Sophie Brooke closing the team in 85th with 46:46.
This was a superb all round effort and show of team unity by all involved.
The Herne Hill men who raced featured some good runs too. Nick Dewar placed 10th in 25:51, followed in the results by Carl Delaney 16th 26:09, Nick Bester 27th 26:35, Brandon Dewar 31st 26:49, Marc Geraghty 33rd 26:52, Jeff Cunningham 44th 27:18, Josh Pewter 62nd 28:20, Jonny Whittall 66th 28:26, Matt Cartwright 85th 29:16, Jon Key 119th 31:04 and heroically attempting in vain to complete a team, Nigel Goodwin 263rd (and 1st M65) 68.14.
Although lower in participant numbers from the club this was another successful venture in a series of virtual events enjoyed by all who took part.
Geoff Jerwood