22nd BOX HILL FELL RACE 1 March 2003 Organiser's report
That's what friends are for - entering you for a race and letting you win! 3 weeks before the race I saw our 11 time champion Chris Beecham and told him entries were filling fast. So he quickly entered and then paid me for two of his club-mates too. Come race day and what do you know? One of them shows Chris a clean pair of heels in the second half of the race. Henry Dodwell was only 8th last year but was in the lead group (down to 2 at that stage) on Mickleham and took a decisive lead on the steps descending to the road and went on to record the first sub 50 minute time for 4 years.
Shortly before that they had dropped last year's second, Andy Weir, who was suffering from a combination of flight into Heathrow that morning, steamed up glasses and not being the best descender around. Andy then switched to cruise mode and so was nearly pipped by his fast-finishing club-mate Dave Symons (on the first section of his stag day!) until the finish officials woke him up.
Kevin Harding (age 43) was first veteran for the 4th time and a class act from Mario Foschi from Cheshire took the super-veteran prize finishing 12th overall, second over 40
In the ladies race, the hot favourite in the entry list was Sarah Rollins but she didn't make it to the start line. This left a close race with the leading three seeing a lot of each other until Tracey Apps pulled away over the closing stages for a clear win. A solid sub 70 minute run from Sue Ashley earned her the lady vets prize.
Surrey League champions Thames Hare & Hounds have been paying this race closer attention recently (I think they've finally noticed I keep nicking their course markers for it), and with the classy runners they've got the team prize went their way for a second year. Surprisingly the many times winners Worthing Harriers failed to field a full team.
TEAM RESULTS
1 Thames Hare & Hounds 47 7 Turpin's Trotters 253
2 Springfield Striders 94 8 Bishops Stortford RC 291
3 Sheen Shufflers 114 9 Tadworth 302
4 Tri-London 171 10 Cambridge Harriers 378
5 South London Harriers 186 11 Guildford Orienteers 399
6 Tring R C 231 12 North Downs Nomads 512
To see individual results – Click here
That's the race. Now for the admin bits.
Our new approach to coping with the numbers limit worked well in that we filled our allocation 12 days before the race. I was sorry to disappoint anyone who didn't get a run but it's the only way to handle it and we'll be doing the same next year. However as we had only 162 finishers the no-show rate was higher than expected and so we'll accept more entries next year (say 225) and anticipate the same no show rate.
Also expect us to be back on the usual January date. We were later this year due to the major orienteering race in February but that did enable us to produce better course maps for the event centre.
I also noted that some of you have found two new and exciting places to run off the course - so we'll be paying attention to the course marking in those places next year as well as the usual problem areas.
Thank you to all the usual suspects. The National Trust for permission to run on the hills. Sandra Dunlop and all those at Friends Provident for use of the car park and social club - what about the new sign then! And of course, the loyal band of regular helpers - Dick (entries), Mike M (signs, course marking and road crossing), Chris (registration and patrolling), Heather, Kay, Ann-Marie and Mike E (finish), Peter (course sweeper), Jeremy, Kate and Sue (road crossings), Mark (notices) and Paul (car park).
…… but especially Ann-Marie for coming all the way from Norway - just for this!!
Finally a plug for the Surrey Hill Races on the other side of Dorking on Saturday 31st May. See the Fell Runners Calendar or the SLOW website sloweb.org.uk or email Jeremy Denny - .
See you then or here again next year
Andy Robinson
PS Lost property - a fleece (at FP - belongs to Verna Burgess) and a drinks bottle (with me). Ring 020-8255-7176