Monthly Archives: October 2016

Farley Mount – Hampshire League (2016/7) 1 of 5

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Wonderful weather for the start of the Cross Countyr season, and XC intro once again provided by Farley Mount, near Winchester. The Hampshire Leaugue circuit will offer some truly excellent competition for the U17M this year with Lachlan Wellington and Zak Mahamed (1 and 2 in the country at U15 last year) moving up in to the U17 age group.

As expected both Laclan and Zak set a fast pace from the begining with Wimbourne star Tom Bourne and Reading Athlete Sam Rodda in the mix, AFD showing a strong team prsence with Robbie Coupland, Max Heyden, Ollie Percival, Marcus Shantry all running well and pushing the the team efforts high.

Ultimately the race finished as below; (times to follow)

  1. Lachlan Wellington (Portsmouth)
  2. Tom Bourne (Wimborne)
  3. Zac Mahamed (Southampton)
  4. Sam Rodda (Reading)
  5. Max Heydn (AFD)
  6. Robbie Coupland (AFD)
  7. Jacob O’Hara (Portsmouth)

Lost track at that point will update when the official results are released but AFD definately top the team event with Marcus Shantry finishing 9th and Ollie Percival finishing 11th meaning that AFD had 4 runners over the line before 2nd place team (Portsmouth) got their 3rd runner in.

A great run but a lot of runners, Lachlan’s lead was impressive, Tom Bourne back in form, Max Heyden leading home AFD. Well done everyone who competed today, a special well done to Gill Pantony at AFD on completing her first XC race in a few years.

Robbie packed in on the starting straight.

All packed in on the starting straight.

National Road Relays 2016

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Surprisingly the National Road Relays was held slightly North of the Southerns in it’s usual location of Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield. AFD didn’t spend so much time on the podium today, but everyone that was available put a good show in. The Youth section of the Road Relays didn’t have many notable performances, with only the U13B, U17W and U17M making the top ten. A very good performance from the U13B though, with the team coming 2nd overall and Harry Hyde placing 2nd in the fastest individuals, ansimularly great performance from the U17W with the team getting our only Junior Gold, and Lucy Pygott placing 2nd to take our 2nd Individual Silver.

AFD raced well in the Senior Mens event with Josh Grace finishing 1st in leg one, and achieving 6th place overall in the Individual Table, with the team placing 8th overall, once again AFD pride was carried on the back of the Senior Women who managed to get 2 teams in the top 10, placing 1st and 10th with Emily Hosker Thornhill bringing AFD up in to 2nd place in the 3rd stage ane Louise Small running an excellent final leg, placing 4th overall in the Individual table and bringing AFD Senior Women to the 1st place and Gold Medal place in the team event.

Robbie had a good run in the U17M’s race, having suffered badly with a chesty cold for almost two weeks, and missing a couple of training sessions because of it, speed and performacne were not expected to be great, especially given the short period of time he has actually been back at full training since his summer injury. He hoped for a sub 12min run and was somewhat dissapointed to only achieve 12:12 but giving the circumstances not a bad run. Once again Robbie took on the mantle of middle man, picking up the batton from Olly Percival who ran the 1st stage in 12:30, handing over in 19th position, Robbie picked off a list of individuals to take AFD up to 9th place, handing on to Max Heydn who picked off a further 2 runners and brought AFD up to 7th place and comlpeted his stage in 12:32.

All in all not a bad day out, even Jade came to watch, not that she saw much of the racing, she spent the whole day cuddling Trex, but hey, she’s been at Uni for a whole week so is bound to be missing him.

Robbie working hard, tired and feeling it.

Robbie working hard, tired and feeling it.