MWL4: 'If Only' territory

Bit of a delay between this race and writing about it: sorry, been too busy with going to Wimbledon to see the tennis, going to Wales to walk up a load of hills, getting a cold and then recovering from all of the above. Breaking the laptop didn't help, either.

So all the excitement I would have written about has evaporated by now. Which is a shame, because it's worth writing down that we all did tremendously well in the last midweek league race. This was clearly helped by the return of Neil Miller, who finished second even while injured: he could see he wasn't going to win, but would comfortably beat 3rd place (which turned out to be Steve McK - a very impressive run), so every so often he stopped to stretch, until 3rd place caught him up, at which point he'd race off again. Fantastic. Also fantastic were the ladies, taking 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th places, and - unsurprisingly - winning the ladies' race.

Of course, with this being our home race, it wasn't just the running we had to worry about - there was the course to arrange and sign, food to prepare and marshals to organise. I won't go on about it (it's difficult to, since I mainly saw it from a running point of view), but as far as I can tell it all went really well. Although something must have gone wrong with the marshals' briefing, since only about a quarter of them were cheering loudly for NHRR. And that's not counting the marshals that FVS kindly supplied.

FVS seemed a bit light on fast runners, which could have been for any number of reasons. Possibly they thought they didn't have to bother, since their Comet report after race 3 was all about how they were guaranteed promotion even before the final race, which put my back up a bit, especially since it wasn't true. Although I don't know whether it was the perceived arrogance or abuse of maths that bothered me the most. Actually, now I think about it, it is the maths - we'd have been proud if it was us in that strong a position. It was clear from the start that Shaftesbury Barnet hadn't really turned up either - and the results showed that they ended up down in 4th place, behind the men from Harlow.

Ah yes, the results. They came out after midnight, and there were plenty of people still up and waiting to see them. Unfortunately they weren't quite what we wanted to see. We'd regained the match point we lost in the last event, so it was all down to 'goal difference' again... but we hadn't quite managed enough. 18 points was the margin in the end - firmly in 'if only' territory. There are so many examples of how it could have all been different if only thingummybob hadn't been stuck at work, or on holiday, or injured. It wouldn't take too many cases of runners coming a few places lower than they should have done to make up the difference, too.

1 Fairlands Valley Spartans 1864 49
2 North Herts Road Runners 1882 49
3 Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers 2672 32
4 Harlow Running Club 2933 31
5 Bishops Stortford 3602 30
6 Broxbourne Runners 4969 19
7 Herts Phoenix 4915 14

But there's no point feeling guilty, or dwelling on what might have been. We got promoted - hurrah! - and get to race in the big league again next season, against Garden City Runners, St Albans, Orion and Barnet.

And Spartans, of course.