Hylands highlights (report by M Waine)
The women came in with such renewed confidence that they 'transferred one of their top runners Sarah Colbert to marshalling duties. This confidence wasn't misplaced as they ran out comfortable winners. June kept up her 100% record with a large winning margin. Tracey Alexandrou continued where she left off at Notley with a fine 4th. Jennifer Macauley, glad that Hylands was easier to find than her Essex Way start, had a great seasonal debut in 7th place and Sarah Hammond, sporting her Barbados tan, showed true captain's drive to complete the scoring team in 16th. If the sangrias had proved to much then there would have been great team back up starting with Vic Curran in 18th. Well done to all the others who completed. The women's first team totalled 28 with their nearest challengers Ipswich on 54 points.
The men again dominated their match. Pre-race favourite Paul Molyneux delivered the goods with a victory even though he ran considerably further with a number of detours and was thankful to the generosity of Bentley's Dave Green in second calling him back! Malcolm Muir, sponsored by Chris Beazely's spare vest, came in 4th as he continues his return to form after months off before his wedding. Paul Dobson, another runner with increasing confidence has continued his great start to the season with 6th (and hasn't taken the glassjaw title even though Gavin Allen's lightning kick got him!) and is all set for next week's Essex Vets. The undisputed Glassjaw was 7th which is a great run from someone who is not a cross country fan and puts the team before personal preference (not sure looking at Adrian's photos he has the best approach to crossing ditches!) . New Strider Colin Peck followed up his great run at Basildon with an excellent 8th place. Tristan's race was hampered by achilles trouble and he did well to finish in 14th. Lee Martin, another runner who prefers the road came in 16th and James Smith again ran well to score for the first team again in 19th keeping out the legendary Gary Chandler in 22nd. Mark Edwards had a fine debut for the Striders in 25th and is one to watch. James Neugebauer kept up his fine season in 27th and Iron Man Chris Burgoyne returned a 29th place after another heavy night! Behind him the usual suspects were backing up with Paul Jeggo, having his best run of the season, Stuart Raven, Steve Moore and myself (relieved as June put it that I wasn't 'chick'd'!) making up the second team which on scoring would have beaten every other team bar Harwich. Special mention to Tom Coen who ran well in his first cross country in 43rd and welcome back to Siddy with a strong run in 54th. All in all a great performance as even are 3rd scoring team would have beaten Colchester, Bentley and Halstead.
Well done to everyone who ran. There are too many to call out all individually but what is evident is that we are a progressive club and the athletes are working together in groups to progress and this is paying dividends with improved performances throughout the field, which is great to see. Thanks to Kev for an excellent course and all those helpers/marshalls and supporters who made the race possible. Finally well done to the Junior Pearce's who were our entrants in the first race.
Naturally we won the overall combined score and now lead the league by 4 clear points.
Next match is 11th December at Halstead and we need to keep the momentum going to drive home the advantage. Before that would be great to see a good turnout at Pitsea on the 4th December for the Mid-Essex League