Kent Vets XC Championships – 02/12/2023

A large contingent of Club Members travelled over to Dartford on a very cold, but calm, morning to compete in the annual Kent Vets Championships.  The races were to be 5.2k or 8.4k, although organisers took pity because of the cold with both distances turning out to be some 4-600 meters short.

First off at 11.30am were the M50 team with 7 runners representing the club. First home in 8th was Luca in 29.11 followed by Steve Hough (22^nd/ 30.50), Jason Meers (39^th/32.47) and Matt Bullen (42^nd/ 33.13) making up the team. The team finished a creditable 4^th with Chris Martin, Barry Slattery, George Kleanthos completing the BBHAC runners.

Next up were the M60, running 3 to score & M70 men with no team event. The M60s packed very well with Steve Pairman (27^th), Andy Lawes (29^th) and Luigi Arcuri (31^st) making up the team that finished 7^th, sadly some way off making it 3 wins in a row following the M60 wins in the last 2 years. Mark Ellison was 5 places and James Unwin 7 behind Luigi. In the M70, John Turner finished in 7^th as our only entrant as other heathens were unfortunately unable to run.  Needless to say, John had already done his first 5k of the day at the Dartford Park Run that morning (followed by a fry up!).

Then there was the star event for the Club – the women’s Championships where we fielded runners in FV35 & FV45 categories. Trang Nguyen ran a very strong race to finish 5^th in the FV35 category. Carole Coulon had a superb and commanding run, quickly building up a lead and extending this throughout the 5k to win in 19.01 to win the FV45 event, although this was also the quickest run of the FV35’s as well. Well done Carole! Backing up Carole was a strong performance from Ashley Pearson who also medalled finishing 3^rd (20.16) in the FV45. With Katy Sugden having a great race and finishing 17^th (21.50) this was enough for the team to win the FV45 championship! Well done and well deserved!

Note – BBHAC would have won the F35 championships with Carole, Ashley and Trang!

The final event of the Championships was the MV40 race (8k), with the club fielding 8 runners, led home by a great run from Micah Evans, who finished 5th in 26.03, just 18 seconds behind the winner: Jonathan Tippier of Kent AC in 25.45. The rest of the 4 to score team packed closely together throughout the race , with Sam Aldridge (21^st /28.13), Leon De Bruyne (22^nd / 28.15) and Seb Jones (24^th / 28.20).  Agonisingly the team came 4^th, just 1 point behind Tonbridge! It is worth noting that they would have finished 3^rd if the scoring was on gross times, rather than gross places!

Photos to follow

Steve Pairman