Essex Cross Country League, Round 5, Colchester, 10 January 2004  

Two individual and two team victories, in a day or thrills and spills on a deceptively tough Colchester course, rounded off the fifth and final round of this winter's Essex Cross Country League series. And HMAC teams carried off the prizes in two age categories while several athletes won individual performance medals. 

Under 13 Boys As usual the highlights fell to the u13 boys who once again turned out in force to complete an unbeaten season in the league. Matt Bloy repeated his tactics from the County Champs seven days before to lead from start to finish in an impressive manner in 13.52, followed closely by Steve MacLachlan making yet another late charge through the field for second. Once again Grant Twist was unlucky, hitting a boulder near the finish and dropping from 2nd to 4th in the closing stages - hopefully his painfully swollen ankle will get better before the Essex Schools Championships next week. Closing in the team was the improving Daniel Winters in 11th. Valuable support as usual was provided by Daniel Shanney (20th), Simon Brown (22nd), Thomas Shanney (23rd) and James McAusland (35th).

The team won the overall trophy for the season with a magnificent minimum score of five points, having won each race. In the individual stakes - based on the athlete's best four results -  Steve MacLachlan won with 5 points, followed by Matt Bloy 10 points edging out Grant Twist on 11 points - Grant losing out after today's fourth place.  

Under 13 Girls  The under 13 girls were first off as usual and the race saw us field our strongest team of the year with seven girls taking part. Ingrid Deane bounced back from her fall last week showing true grit and determination to cross the line in third, securing the medal for overall individual second place for all five races. Michaela Roberts again put in a strong run to take 13th, with Rebecca Luck digging in hard to come home in 16th and to make up the scoring team was Louisa Wood running well to take 22nd. Rachael Kerr had her best race of the season to come home in 23rd (14.46),  Georgia Davis finished in a well run 29th, and E.Woods in her first races for the club come home in a well run 34th. The team's fifth consecutive third place guaranteed third place overall in the table.

Under 15 Boys Hopes were high after last week's winning performances at the County Championships, but unfortunately with an incomplete team - missing all the county medal winning squad - Havering were unable to feature in the overall rankings. Just two took part - Chris MacLachlan continues to improve and had his best race of the season storming to 6th place, with Liam Gildea also improving to finish 19th.

Under 15 Girls The under 15 girls also put on a fine display of running. Lauren Clark set the team up well with good points, by given the race her all to take 8th, while one place back another fine brought Claire Robinson in 9th.  Hayley Thomas also ran well after getting over her cold from last weekend to take 10th. Jade Edwards showed she is willing to do anything for the team by running hard for the whole race to take 11th then getting in the car to travel to Clacton for a swimming gala. Another athlete to get over from illness was Rachael Newman who put in a fine run taking 14th while plucky Lauren Newton come home in 32nd. The close packing of the HMAC team brought them the team prize on the day and second place in the league stakes  overall.

Under 17 Men Andrew Meech looked to have recovered from recent injury problems to finish 6th with Christian Newton once again very determined in 21st place. 

Under 17 Women There was a tense battle for the u17 girls title which started the day with HMAC and Basildon joint first and well clear of the opposition. With their big guns resting ahead of next week's county schools championships, and only three athletes running the title seemed to be heading Basildon's way but as the athletes lined up it was evident Basildon were in the same boat, also having three runners. So the race for the team award was back on. Things seemed bleak when Basildon had two runners across the line in 6th and 7th, but Helen Roche had saved her best race of the season to come home in 9th and a strong run placed Robyn Delivett 15th.  As the back markers finished only two athletes were still out on the course -  HMACs Jennifer Szantai and Basildon's third athlete - but dramatically the Basildon girl dropped out and although Jennifer had herself taken a fall she was still walking the race. Bravely, by walking and slowly jogging the rest of the course brought Jenny home in 17th to place the team fourth on the day, one place ahead of Basildon, winning the team prize for the season.

Senior Men & Women  A great run by Trevor Keys saw him finish in sixth place in the senior men's event. He was well supported by a strong running Gavin Maley who finished in a seasons best fourteenth and was closely followed by Rob Dickenson and Rob Warner in twenty second and twenty third respectively. Martin Heys ran well to finish twenty seventh with Graham Pritchard  rounding off the scoring team in thirty sixth. Chris Coates 40^th , Neill Collins 53^rd and Tony Collins 62^nd completed the Havering line up.

In the senior women's race Faye Fullerton was in very impressive form with a superb winning performance, after her recent injury problems. Behind her both Nikki Barnett and Lesley Felton both ran strongly with Nikki finishing an excellent fifth and Lesley in twelfth.  With Julie Gildea completing the scoring four in 28th and Linda Smith providing good support in 31st the team were runners up behind league leaders Colchester. Lesley's run sealed silver for her in the veteran's individual competition in the league this season. 

Results  

6th - Chris MacLachlan 18:34; 19th - Liam Gildea - 19:50