Third SAL match - Croydon - Race Report

On a hot and sunny day south of the river, our team had the best result so far in the season, missing the victory by only 5 points to the hosting club, but improving their position in the division. Avoiding relegation is now not an impossible task.

Our opponents for the day were Ipswich Harriers, Thurrock Harriers and Croydon Harriers (host club).

Before the start of the match we knew that on paper this was one of the most complete teams we have had so far this season and things only got better when our two quick junior sprinters (Awa and Jada) showed up in Croydon as well to run with us. Of course TfL and the M25 traffic tried their best to throw a spanner in the works, with long journeys from central London and standstill queues, but we had a cracking start to the day anyway and went head-to-head with Croydon throughout the match to end by losing to them by only 5 points.

Thanks to everyone who competed and for making it a very successful day: it was great to have some known faces back in action (Helen G and Shenten E) together with some of our juniors, who could finally give other club's youngsters a run for their money. Awa and Jada had a fantastic race, both coming second in their strings over 100m, and new member Ryleigh C managed a second in a very competitive 800m race (with Bart P winning B string). We had our usual great point collection on longer races: newcomer Tony P easily won the 5000m and was second in the 1500m, where Nathan won the B string; and Dani D won the steeplechase B; whereas our ladies, Marta B, Tash S, Victoria B, Daisy G, Laura C and Helen G clean-swept the field in 800m, 1500m, 3k and steeplechase. Our throwers had a better day than in previous matches, especially in the men, and we even managed to win both javelin strings with Shenten E and Frank W. Inger and Caroline won the pole vault (about time to break the 170cm club record?)

We of course had some drama too, mainly due to the heat: in the 5000m, the sun got the best of Jon B, who just managed to finish the race, but not enjoying a single stride of it; and Ben S decided that the 2000m steeplechase was too hot and dived straight into the water jump (dive for which he got full marks from the judges!) with no consequences apart from those on his ego.

Final scores of the day were:

  1. Croydon Harriers 198
  2. Serpentine 193
  3. Ipswich Harriers 178
  4. Thurrock Harriers 168

Full results are on the SAL website and on our website as well.

Thanks to our officials and helpers on the day (Ian and Sally Hodge, Sammy Li, Andrew Maynard, Emile Mardacany and Steph Vaatz, for standing under the sun for hours and scoring 20 points for our team.

The next SAL match will be in Stevenage on Saturday 8th July: now that the ice is broken, we need to continue the trend and improve our position in the league even further. Everyone is welcome to take part, the sun will be shining and it will also be a great opportunity to sharpen your form before the upcoming Summer Grand Prix.

Looking forward to seeing many of you in July.

Nick Barberis
SAL men's captain

Submitted: 20 June 2017

Back