02/03/2014 - Holly Hayes Wood XC


The final race in this year’s Derby Runner Cross Country league took place at Whitwick over a 5 mile course of mainly woodland.The weather was quite cold but dry and slightly muddy underfoot, and the course was fast with just one long drag repeated a few times, a few stream crossings and some technical woodland parts……..a course for the ‘greyhounds’ of the cross country world! Ivanhoe did well to turn out full teams with so many long distance races on at the moment, although the women had plenty of bodies but the men had none to spare with every male Ivanhoe runner counting today! The results were as follows: Men: First back for Ivanhoe was Phil Stephenson. Despite having done an 80 mile bike ride the day before, Phil was 69th overall in a time of 37:42. Martin Yeomans, team captain extraordinaire was next, coming 115th in 40:25, with Andy Lindley hot on his heels coming 118th in 40:40. Andy Gillies was next, 125th in 41:10, then our third and last Andy, Andy Pawley, 136th in 42:16. Kev Wright recovered from a fall and getting winded on the course to come 148th in 43:26, with Alan Edwards next 160th in 44:46, and Dave Morse completing the team in 205th in a time of 59:59. Mens team placing for the final race was 16th out of 16 teams with Shelton Striders coming first. Women: Rosie Dear managed to hang on for first Ivanhoe lady coming 23rd in 43:22, not knowing that Rebecca Hallam and Zoe Allery were just behind, coming 24th in 43:35 and 25th in 43:37 respectively………Bec having done 16 miles the day before and heading off to play a netball match straight after!! Julia Blewitt-Jenkins was final counter coming 31st in 44:45, and Laura Graves next, producing a strong finish to gain a place in the finishing straight, coming 42nd in 46:11. Victoria Smith also had a great run coming in just after Laura in 43rd place 2 seconds behind in 46:13. Carolyn Osborne beat the fatigue of marathon training to come in 46th in 46:37, then Ali Sturla with a great performance to come 53rd in 47:56. Ruth Green was next coming 56th in 48:26, with Amanda Bradbury on her heels coming 57th in 48:27, then Teresa Talbott, 62nd in 48:59 and Seran Bradley finishing strongly to come 76th in 51:40. The women fared better in their placings coming 4th women’s team out of 16 teams with Leicester Tri first. Ivanhoe came combined 16th out of 16 teams with Hermitage top dogs. The end of this season saw Ivanhoe men staying in D2, in 5th place, with Shelton at the top of this division Ivanhoe wo.men did a great job to gain 6th place in D1….with Barrow at the top of the tree. In the combined team placings, Ivanhoe came 9th out of the 10 teams in Division 1 with Shelton first and unfortunately the combined team are likely to be relegated to Division 2. On a better note, three Ivanhoe Runners came home with league prizes: Lucy Roberts was head and shoulders above her rivals in the under 20s competition winning first prize, Zoe Allery came 5th lady vet and Andy Jeyes won the 3rd vet 60 prize, well done to all.

Written by Ruth Green - last updated on 29/04/2014