Metropolitan League Cross-Country – race 4

Race four of the Metropolitan League was held at Alexandra Palace for the first time in many years. With a lot of rain falling in the preceding week conditions were bound to be muddy, and they were! The course feature a notorious hill, which the men had to climb and descend three teams in the race, although for some reason the women's course did not include it and they ran a relatively boring, flat(ish) course instead.
The women went into this race in the lead of division one and by the end of lap one it seemed pretty clear that they were going to stay there as we had three in the top five. It stayed that way all race and with team captain Natalie Kolodziej finishing as our 6th runner in 24th place, (making a return to racing after a long period of injury) we easily won the race.
The men started their race on the back foot having been pushed down into third place in their division one after the last race (in Trent Park). However, team captain Eric Phillips did a fantastic job of getting everyone out and we had 71 finishers.Watching the race it was impossible to say who was in the lead between Serpentine and our rivals Woodford Green with Essex Ladies and in the end it came down to 14 points with Serpentine narrowly in the lead. Shaftsbury Barnet had a fairly poor showing so after this race we moved back up to 2nd place in the league, 119 points behind Woodford. It's all to play for in the final match in 4 week's time.
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