Newport Harriers
Gwent League

Gwent League Cross-Country
University of Bath, 8th November 2009

Senior Men (305 starters) – slight improvement offers small crumbs of comfort

With the return of some key athletes the quality of Newport’s team improved and we had our first top 100 finisher, though overall the points gap between us and Division 1 survival increased.

Travelling over from Ireland and spearheading the team in 71st place was our wild rover Gareth Fereday, still recovering from his marathon debut from two weeks ago. Another returning athlete was Dave Goodger (112th), nursing his sore hamstring over the hilly course. Steve Wadley claimed he was treating the race as a training run but in fact he ran very strongly to finish 169th. Darryn McAtee (196th) crashed into the top 200 for the first time this season, exactly four seconds slower than the same course this time last year. Malcolm Medhurst (236th) and Dave Proffitt (238th) had their own private duel, and surely Dave would have edged Malcolm had he not raced the Bath Victoria Park 4-mile the day before.

We have Dave Griffiths to return and hopefully Neil Hardee can get over his injury niggle, but it’s still looking grim for Newport, especially as Gareth Fereday will be absent from the next race in Taunton.

Senior Men Division 1

Senior women (174 starters) – Loudon continues fine form

Rhian Loudon seemed to be sprinting the 3-mile course at times, finishing 69th and one-and-a-half minutes faster than this time last year. Within the M35 category this made Rhian 20th out of 94 starters. Ann Saxena was off her usual pace but ran solidly for 87th place.

Newport Women dropped a few places in Division 2 but provided Rhian and Ann keep turning up there should be no relegation worries.

Senior Women Division 2