For the first time since Robbie started running I missed the Southerns, but Robbie didn’t, with Anna and I celebrating our friends birthday in France both the Southern XC and the Southern Inter-County Schools would pass without our presence.
Robbie headed in to London with Anna’s Mum and Dad with hopes of a high finish, targeting top 5 which seemed possible given current form. Unfortunately on the day, things simply didn’t go to plan.
A strong start saw Robbie running half the race just inside the top 10, a great place to build from, but a quick trip in to face plant heaven left him feeling a little dispondent when he regained his feet, and despite pushing hard the fire was gone and he ultimately finished in 17th place (in 20.16) . All in all it was a good run, it wasn’t a reflection of his current form but 17th at Parliament Hill is still a great placing. Robbie was 2nd AFD runner on the day, the 1st runner in for AFD was Marcus Shantry (20.03) having a great run and coming 8th, Lewis Reid was AFD’s 3rd runner coming in 20th (20.25) just in front of our 4th and final scorer Max Heyden in 22nd (20.27).
Unsurprisingly, on current performance Zac Mahamed (19.01) and Lachlan Wellington (19.02) took 1st and 2nd place with a photo finish required to choose the winner, which was after deliberation handed to Zac, but what a battle for the finish line, both runners finishing 20 seconds in front of 3rd place George Groom.
As often happens at the Southerns, Tonbridge had the breadth of field to take the team gold (58 points), closely follwed by AFD in silver place (67 points) with Reading (132) just pipping Ipswich (134) to 3rd and bronze.
AFD U17’s Team Silver Medalists