Vale of Aylesbury’s Charlie May and Sophie Delderfield travelled to Ruislip to compete in this year’s Finchley 20 in atrocious weather conditions at the weekend.
May did not disappoint and his time of 1:54:52 gave him fourth place and puts him third all-time fastest from the club at that distance. Meanwhile, Delderfield who had been disappointed with her run at the Inter County Championships last weekend, bounced back with a PB of 2:17:04, putting her in 82nd place overall and eighth lady to complete the course.
In the English Schools National Cross Country Championships at Derbyshire, which one Vale athlete described as the muddiest and stickiest course she had ever run, the club had runners representing both them and Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire schools. Vale performance of the day came from Kieran Lindars in the Intermediate age group. Kieran is not a fan of the large competitions, but he put that to one side and ran a great race finishing 66th from more than 300 competitors in a time of 21mins.
Christian von Eitzen ran for Oxfordshire schools and unfortunately was ‘spiked’ and tripped near the beginning of the race.
He still finished just 26 seconds behind Kieran in 109th place. The club’s Intermediate girl was Alice Wright who showed great bravery to run having collapsed after her race last weekend. Alice finished in 202nd place. In the Seniors, James Davis, a first year in the age group, finished 89th from 311 finishers in a time of 23:32 with George Langston 207th in 25:23. Harri Kane and Eliza Taswell Fryer were VoA’s two Junior competitors.