Roundshaw Parkrun Painted Blue and Yellow

John Fisher runners dominated the Roundhaw 5k Parkrun last Saturday, with 9 of the top 11 finishers running in the blue and yellow of JFS.


With qualification for the Mini-Marathon on the line good numbers turned up to be greeted with arctic conditions of cold and snow. This did not deter our hardy athletes however and they all ran fantastically.

Name	Year	Position	Time
Ricky Lutakome	12	1st	16.26
Jacob Jones	11	2nd	18.13
Gianluca Ercolano	11	3rd	19.07 (New PB)
Ryan Galvin	12	8th at Nonsuch	19.10
Joe Logue	10	5th	20.32
Freddy Georgiou	8	6th	20.58
Peter Edwards	9	8th	21.31 (New PB)
Joseph Conroy	8	9th	21.46
Ebuka Nkamuo	7	10th	22.03
Matthew Conway	7	11th	22.04
Alex Galvin	12	49th at Nonsuch	22.27
Paul Hewitt	7	24th	24.14
John Hilario	7	26th	24.25
Charlie Kitchen	7	36th	26.27
Marcus Littlewood	7	59th	N/A
Jacob Horle	7	71st	31.48

RADLEY RUN PRODUCES THE GOODS AGAIN!

The Radley Relays have been a recent addition to the Cross-Country calendar but an extremely welcome one. A good course, at a school steeped in history, alongside the fact we have a good chance of coming away with medals - which happened again this week!

The race is near Oxford, and so an 11.00 meet at school saw all runners present and correct - which in itself was a great start - and we set off. A short stop at the now-familiar Oxford services saw us squeeze into packed car park at Radley and preparations made.


It was bitterly cold, and the course was known to be very muddy in places. The Inters Team had won the relay last year - and they now made up the Senior Team, and the good form of all the runners meant that sights were well and truly set on more medal glory.


Junior, Inter and Senior teams all ran together, with different coloured numbers to enable the different contests to be understood. With Miss Tomes keeping check at the finish and Francis supporting from the course, Mr Fell took hi customary position at the start of the finishing push.


For the Seniors, Ryan Galvin took the first leg and produced an excellent time, running in as 5th place. He handed onto Finley Wells who powered away and took us closer to the medals. Alex then ran his customary solid run, to leave Ricky in 4th place, but with ground to make up. Ground he did make up, overtaking the two runners ahead of him, and bearing down on the leader when the course finished with JFS in 2nd place. Ricky had run the course in 10.42, thus recording the fastest time of the day.


This was a great achievement, all ran well, the tactics proved spot on, and the team can return next year at the top of the age group and aim for the Gold

SENIORS

R Galvin   11.57  (11.52)

Wells  12.05

A Galvin  12.11  (12.15 – 2016)

Lutakome  10.42  (11.13) FASTEST LAP OVERALL

RUNNERS UP             21 teams

The Inters had high hopes of success, but ultimately were just pushed into 4th place despite some excellent performances. Jacob continued his outstanding recent form with a fantastic first leg with a great time. Gianluca then continued the excellent start, followed by Harry - showing he is near to his best form with every run - and then finished by Alfie Smith, who belied his Year 8 school year to run a top time. Fourth place was an excellent finish and the whole team should be very pleased with themselves!

INTERS

Jones  12.02

Ercolano   12.29   (12.45 - 2016)

Smith H 12.38  (12.39)


Smith A  12.48

4th place                17 teams

MEDAL SUCCESS AT WELLINGTON!

WELLINGTON RELAYS  – 4^th February

Just one junior and one inter team competed today as 4 of our senior squad were representing Surrey in an Inter-counties fixture in Kent. A new course around the lakes and in view of the impressive frontage of Wellington College was walked and the boys were raring to go. Many of the public schools with good cross country records attend this event, but this did not deter the JFS runners. 

A powerful leg (2^nd fastest junior of the day) by Alfie put us in 2^nd place at the end of the first leg. This put the pressure on Ebuka, Peter, Leo and Matthew to keep this position as the legs unfolded. They were able to do this until right at the end when Matthew (yr 7) was up against a yr9 boy from Radley College and just couldn’t keep up with him despite a valiant effort. Highgate were the winners. The whole team should be extremely pleased with their performance.

In this event the inters always race with the seniors, but the results are separated out at the end. This makes it a very exciting, competitive and a bit confusing unless you can work out who is an inter and who is a senior! Jacob ran first today and came back in a superb 2^nd place in the inters with the 2^nd fastest time of the day. Gianluca also had a fantastic run to record the 6^th fastest time. Harry still coming back from injury and Ben were determined to keep our 2^nd position and did so. Alfie, making up the inters team, did not disappoint and ran another 7 minute leg to make sure that he was going home with TWO medals, much to his satisfaction. Tonbridge were the winners.

FURTHER SUCCESS AT NATIONALS!

NATIONAL U19 RELAY AT HENRY VIII SCHOOL, COVENTRY

1^st February

The annual pilgrimage to Coventry is always eagerly anticipated by the Senior team despite the lengthy journey. A stop at Oxford services to fill up with food is welcomed with Subway seemingly the nutrition of choice this year!

This race draws the best 50 teams in the country. Our ambitious target was to break the top 10 places for the first time ever. Last year we were the 11^th A team. Careful leg order consideration is vital and with 9 of the 12 runners having run last year the 2 mile course was familiar to them.

The first leg is tough as most schools put their fastest runner on it, however, Alex and Harry battled through to put us in a fair position meaning that, certainly for the A team, they could hope to start moving up gradually through the field. The main breakthrough came on the 4^th leg when Ricky moved up from 25^th place to 10^th – a fantastic run. It was left to Jacob and Ryan to hang on to it. Despite a valiant effort we dropped to 13^th place. Ryan, in particular, was unfortunate to be running on the same leg as the Olympic youth triathlon champion running for Loughborough College, who made the 2 miles look like a walk in the park, as well as other known very fast runners.

Both teams beat their overall times from last year and should be proud to know that they are still the best comprehensive school at this event. Well done to all of the squad.

Lutakome  11.57       

Galvin R   13.18        

Galvin A   13.28 

Daburn   14.41

Smith H  14.11

Wells  13.12   

Ercolano  13.37    (2016 - 14.11)

Halfacre J  15.54

Jones   13.28     (14.19)

Hodgson  14.47   (15.40)  

Brant  14.38

Smith A  14.13

    RESULTS     A team  13^th 

                    B team  41^st

Ricky – 8^th fastest lap.                     

        

            51 UK teams                              

              306 runners

LEAGUE RELAYS AT HOME 28th January

This was quite a low key fixture as a number of runners were competing in the South of England champs on Parliament Hill. Tiffin, Oxted and Whitgift were able to bring teams. Fortunately the weather was kind to us with the rain just about holding off. It really does make a difference particularly when the start and finish lines are right in the middle of the playing fields.

4 good legs from the juniors saw them finish second to an always impressive team from Whitgift. Harry running for the first time since a long spell injured volunteered for an extra leg to complete our team and showed a good consistency in his times.

Gianluca and Jacob proved their good form ready for the National relay next week in Coventry. Joe, in his last season, is always a reliable team member who is really enjoying his running even though he knows he will never be as quick as some of the team!

Medals are awarded for the overall winners of the series of 3 league relays. Although finishing in 2^nd places today we had done enough in prior relays to be named WINNERS in both the junior and senior age groups. The number of medals is limited so they will be given to the boys who have taken part in the most league relays this year.

JUNIORS

JOHN FISHER A	NKAMUO 6.14	CONWAY 6.29	SMITH A 6.08	KITCHEN 7.06	2
OXTED A	6.19	6.41	6.44	6.28	3
TIFFIN A	7.08	7.40	9.01	6.43	6
WHITGIFT A	6.06	6.28	6.57	6.11	1
WHITGIFT B	6.40	7.21	6.42	7.13	4
WHITGIFT C	7.01	7.10	7.25	7.25	5

 

INTERS

JOHN FISHER A	GERGES 6.35	EDWARDS 6.13	SMITH 6.05	SMITH 6.08	2
OXTED A	5.58	6.09	5.36	5.15	1

 

SENIORS

JOHN FISHER A	ERCOLANO 5.30	HALFACRE 6.30	BRANT 5.57	JONES 5.27	2
OXTED A	6.12	6.32	6.55	6.33	3
TIFFIN A	5.25	5.27	5.47	6.31	1

 

 

GOATER CUP at HABS, Elstree 25th January

This is the first relay competition of the Easter term and is somewhat different in that teams are made up of runners from different year groups. The race is always exciting with ever-changing positions as it progresses, as schools can run their teams in any age order, so year 7s’ may find themselves running with Sixth Form. The result is rarely obvious until the last of each team has run. One lap of the reservoir means that it is a fairly good spectator course, however, this year the fog meant that there was little warning of incoming runners.The increasingly slippy changeover zone provided for some spectacular finishes to some legs! A running order for JFS of youngest to oldest meant that we moved up the order gradually as the race progressed finally finishing in a very creditable 5^th A team with the B team 17^th out of 29 teams, both an improvement on last year.

Good performances from Alfie (6^th fastest yr 8) and particularly Freddy who ran his best race to date (2^nd fastest yr 8). Well done to Ebuka and Matthew running this race for the first time. Ricky picked up the fastest leg for the second year running, satisfyingly beating his very keen rivals by just 1 and 2 seconds.

Nkamuo 11.19

Conway 11.23

A Smith  10.30  6^th fastest yr8      (10.41 – 2016)

Georgiou  10.07 2^nd fastest yr8   (11.22)

Charnock 11.37     

H Smith  10.01

Logue 10.29

Jones  9.47      (10.28)

Lutakome  8.20 fastest leg overall in race

Wells  9.36

A Galvin  9.44   (9.51)

R Galvin  9.42   

KNOLE RUN COMPLETED

SENIOR KNOLE_ SATURDAY 14TH JANUARY

This event is undoubtedly the most important school race of a runner’s career. It is considered to be the National race for schools with a known reputation for cross country attending from all over the country. Over a tough and hilly 6 miles with usually wet or snowy and slippery conditions it is very testing to say the least. Any John Fisher boy finishing this course can be very proud of himself. Going back to do it a second or even third time without complaining as some of the team did takes a strong constitution. We have those runners!  This year Knole Park was still covered in snow and with nearly 300 runners churning up the ground it proved to be energy sapping.

All of the team acquitted themselves well. A special mention must go to Alfie Smith (yr 8) running for the first time amongst mainly Sixth Form. He was set a challenging target of finishing in the top 200 and amazingly finished in 127^th in a little over 40 minutes. Jacob Jones showed his much improved form this year by finishing 80 places higher than last year shaving over 2 minutes off his time. Ricky continued to impress with a 5^th place finish, unluckily losing a place in the last 100m due to slipping on the last steep downhill tight corner.

   5    Lutakome  34.03   

  83   A Galvin  38.56

  85   R Galvin 38.57

 112  Jones  40.26  

127   A Smith   41.15

225   J Halfacre  51.27

227   Brant  51.38

 

A TEAM   14^th                                

                    34 teams       270 runners

Well done to everyone for completing this very tough, snowy and slippy National Senior 6 mile race against the very best runners in the country. A fantastic effort by all of you.