by Dave Smith
Message below from Malcolm French, a good friend of HAC (and organiser of the Hyde Park 5ks). He’s after marshals for a prestigious XC at Parliament Hill Fields this coming Saturday. A chance to see top class athletes in action and support the sport:
Marshals sought for the London International Cross Country competition – Saturday, 20 Jan – Parliament Hill.
How often do you get to be up close and personal to an international running event? If you want to watch a high-quality event and be inspired by elite level runners, whilst doing something useful, please come and help marshal the London International cross country competition on Saturday, 20 January at Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath.
The competition is on a spectator-friendly 2km circuit close to the track. The races include the latest round of the UK Cross Challenge for age groups from U13’s upwards. The elite races will include the trial for the British World XC Champs team, the Home Nations International (England v Scotland v Wales v Northern Ireland), an inter-area competition and the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) trial for the World Universities XC Champs.
The races will start at 10.45am. The marshals will meet for a briefing at 10.00am and final competitors expected to finish around 3.30pm. All races will take place in a much smaller area than usual – the furthest marshalling point will only be a few minutes’ walk from the start/finish.
Thank you for supporting what promises to be an excellent competition.
by Paul Leppard
by Dave Smith
After the torrential rain experienced during the week, it was a brave group of junior athletes who took on the challenging Greenford Course for the Middlesex Cross Country Championships.
It was the team performance by our U15 Boys which was the standout performance of the day; coming home in 3rd place, to be rewarded with bronze medals which will be presented to them over the coming weeks.
There were some fantastic individual performances – well done to our U11’s – Marcus Sery (10th) and Daniel Jones (21st), who were competing in the first County Championships; we wish them a long, happy & successful cross-country career!
In some highly competitive fields, we had several Top 20 finishers – U13 G – Elsie Fitzgerald (9th); U15B – BarnabeLesenne-Ward (6th); Charlie Reed (13th) and U15G – EdeyKestell (13th).
Huge congratulations to Barnabe Lesenne-Ward, who has been selected to represent Middlesex at the National Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships at Loughborough on 9th March – everyone at HAC wishes him the very best of luck!
by Dave Smith
Save the date for the Hillingdon 20 on Sunday 24th Match 2024. We require over 70 marshalls for this event which is a major fund raiser for the club. If you can spare any time on this date please let Lyndsey Hannigan know either at the clubhouse or via email lindseyhannigan17@hotmail.com
by Dave Smith
Thirty three teams completed this years New Year relay event at Ruislip Lido. The first team to finish was Liam Holbrook and Kirk O’ Rourke. A close battle for second place meant there was only one second between the teams. Finn Coombe, Ryan Stoddart and Zac Dickens just edging Barnabe Lessenne- Ward, Charlie Reed and Dylan Lewis into third place. Fastest lap was run by Liam Holbrook in 8:00. A total of 84 runners and walkers participated in the event. Full results can be found Lido Relays results 2023
by Dave Smith
Rob Thompson extended his record to nine as the most prolific winner of the race with his third fastest time ever.
At the other end of the field, Keith Seldon hobbled his way round to complete his 51st consecutive appearance in the race.
Full results can be found here
xmas rrby Dave Smith
Register at the clubhouse between 9.30am and 10.15am for a 10.30am start.
You compete entirely at your own risk.
All Club members are welcome to run, with a £3 fee for any non-Club members.
The course starts and finishes at the bus stop outside the clubhouse in Bury Street and is a loop of Bury Street, Breakspear Road & Ladygate Lane.
3.2 miles (2 laps)
There is a one-lap option (1.6 miles) for the young (minimum age 11), old (maximum age 111) & injured. This is not an official race, so please keep to the pavement whenever possible and beware of road users and pedestrians.
The licensed bar will be open after the race for a short time for the results announcement.
Further details if required from Gavin Collett
by Dave Smith
This traditional family fun event will take place on Sunday 31st December at 10am near the boathouse at Ruislip Lido. This family focused, fun event consists of three laps of the Lido which you can run as a team of three (i.e. all doing a leg each), teams of two or if you are feeling really fit you can run all three laps yourself! Registration will be at the clubhouse from 9am. Friends and family welcome.
I need five marshalls, a first aider and one person to help time keep so as to meet the terms of the licence issued by the council for this event to go ahead. Please email me if you are able to volunteer on davidalan.smith2@gmail.com
by Dave Smith
Hillingdon AC has been given 2 club entries for the 2024 London Marathon. As in previous years, therefore, one of the places will be given to someone who has regularly competed/volunteered for the club. The other place will be selected on a lucky ballot.
The current names in the hat (in no particular order) are:
1. Charlie Edwards
2. Jeremy Cox
3. Joe Wing
4. Katie Newman
5. Nikki Penty-Alvarez
6. Sam Hurley
The lucky winners will be confirmed on Christmas Day.
If you’d like to put your name in the hat, please let James Laing know asap
by Dave Smith
Firstly WELL DONE to ALL the HAC athletes who turned up at Uxbridge for a race on a traditional cross country course on a day with weather totally suited for winter cross country!! 19 Hillingdon Senior and Veteran ladies turned up and finished this challenging 2 lap course and for the first four and a half miles.
I confidently wrote down the finishing order of our first six ladies that makes up the 1st senior team. Running well as a pack Beverley Whitfield ran for the first time this year and finished in 50th position, closely followed by Nikki in 52nd and Heather Paterson just behind in 54th. And that is what I fully expected the first three to be having watched them pass me in that order several times! Except that our new starlet Katie Newman having discovered that cross country and the Uxbridge course especially are to her liking, had other ideas and treated the last 400m as a track race and raced past our first three and several other fast ladies to finish in 49th position and leading lady for the club! Captain Melanie Spencer and Freya made up the first team finishing in 99th and 115th positions. That gave us 135 points but unfortunately it appears that the attraction of a REAL cross country course meant that all the other teams sent strong teams and we were a disappointing 11th out of twelve teams on the day. We are 8th overall.
The second team again had HAC runners running in packs and was made up of Karen O’Rourke in 119th, Zoe two positions behind and Michaela Mayor three places later. The evergreen Pauline Fischer was in 140th and Lynn Hyde two places later. This gave us 92 points and 9th out of 12 teams in division 2. We lie 10th overall.
The C team also ran close together with Stephanie Suntong in 160th followed by Ellie in 162nd and Nastaran immediately behind. Ruth Costello finished in 172nd to complete the team. This meant we had a full C team and scored 86 points and finished 7th of the 15 teams who scored in division 3. We are 13th of 26 teams in division 3. Also running were Karen Trunkfield in 179th, Vicky Brownlee in 181st, Lucy Duncan in 188th and finishing her first cross country race Lucia Meneghelli in 190th.
In the Veterans divisions our A team consisting of Beverley, Melanie, Karen O’Rourke and Zoe finished in 8th position on the day and sit in 8th position in 12 team division 1. Our B team of Pauline, Lynn, Stephanie and Ruth are now in 4th position in division 2 following their 4th position today.
Sadly today we couldn’t field a full strength 3rd Vets team with Karen Trunkfield, Vicky Brownlee and Lucy Duncan finishing meant we finished 10th on the day and remain in tenth position in twelve team division 2 but only 2 points above the relegation position. We need full Veterans turnouts in the last two fixtures to avoid the drop. We are the ONLY club to have all 3 teams in the top two divisions. Let’s keep it that way!
So WELL DONE everyone – a good turnout and some strong performances!!. It’s just a shame that a number of the other clubs sent out strong teams and stopped us moving up the league tables as was expected.
Keep running and stay healthy!!
by Dave Smith
Well done to all the Hillingdon AC Juniors who took part in our home fixture on a freezing morning in Uxbridge on Saturday.
A big thank you to the coaches, who work tirelessly preparing the athletes and to the parents who supported all the team with such enthusiasm in the freezing cold.
A special mention to the U11 Boys who were placed 2nd overall in the team standings with Marcus Sery finishing 3rd, Leo De’Ath in 9th and William Parmer in 12th.
In the other races there were some great performances with top 20 finishes for Elsie Fitzgerald (9th U13 Girls), Alexander Farley (19th U13 Boys), Edey Kastell (18th U15 Girls), Dylan Lewis (11th U15 Boys) and Natalia Radomska (15th U17 Girls). Full results can be accessed here: Results –
https://metleague.run/results/
Well done to all on a very tough course in freezing conditions. The next MetLeague race is in Welwyn Garden City on 13th January. See you there.
by Dave Smith
Well done to all our juniors who competed in the 2nd Met League at Wormwood Scrubs on Saturday; it was a glorious day and our juniors shone as brightly as the Sun!
As always thank you to the coaches, who work tirelessly preparing the athletes and to the parents for giving up their Saturday to fight the A40 and who supported all the team with such enthusiasm.
There were some stand out performance, with Top 20 finishes by William Palmer U11B (11th); Elsie Fitzgerald U13G (7th); Dylan Lewis U15B (3rd); Barnabe Lesenne-Ward U15B (5th); Edey Kestell U15G (18th). Full results can be accessed here: Results – Metropolitan Cross Country League (metleague.run)
by Dave Smith
Well done to the U15 boys team of Dylan Lewis, Barnabé Lessene Ward and Charlie Reed for their performance in the National Cross Country Championships that took place in Mansfield on 4th November.
On a cold, wet day, the boys finished 31st out of 92 teams.
by Paul Leppard
Hillingdon AC’s senior men finished 17th at the SEAA Cross Country Relays at Wormwood Scrubs thanks to strong runs from Phil Warburton, Abdirahman Hamud and Edward Spencer over the four stage 4km course.
[Read more →]
by Paul Leppard
Hillingdon AC’s senior men made a strong start to the 2023/2024 Met League cross-country season with the A Team finishing sixth in Division One and the B and C teams finishing third and seventh in Division Three.
[Read more →]
