Photo – James West alongside women’s winner Hannah Nuttall
James West, from Tonbridge Athletic Club, had his last competitive outing of the year, on Sunday and came away with a win from the Ribble Valley 10k road race. The event is generally one of the most competitive races, over the distance and is held near Clitheroe in Lancashire.
Just after halfway there was a group of three at the front of the race, which reduced to just West and Jacob Cann, from Newham and Essex Beagles, with a kilometre to go. These two remained locked together, until West was able to sprint clear with 200 metres to go to win by three seconds in 28.43.
West is due to compete in indoor track races over the next few weeks and is the defending UK champion over 3000 metres.
Also on Sunday, Stuart Brown won the Ambles Revenge Multi Terrain race, over 8 miles, near Sheffield.
On Boxing Day, Tonbridge AC held their annual Christmas Handicap race, over a muddy 5km course. The overall winner was Gregor Macdonald, who finished at 25.15, having received a handicap of 2.30 and therefore ran an actual time of 22.45.
The fastest three actual men’s times were recorded by James Kingston (15.05), Ted Higgins (15.19) and Jamie Goodge (16.14), whilst the women’s were by Maria Heslop (20.49), Polly Pitcairn-Knowles (21.33) and Aoife Foley (21.47).
Also, on Boxing Day, Steve Strange finished second at the Witham 5 miles road race, in Essex, in 25.31. Dan Bradley finished fifth in 26.54.
Many of the club’s distance runners are due to be in action at the Kent Cross Country Championships, which take place at Brands Hatch on Saturday.