The Sevenoaks AC women decisively won their team race at the first match of the Kent Fitness League at Knole Park on 22 October. Jacqui O'Reilly led the team in fourth, and she was backed up by Heather Fitzmaurice (2nd W45), new member Vanessa Gilmartin, and Pauline Dalton (3rd W50) scoring for the team. And with James Mason in 3rd, the men's team were second and the combined team second. Andy Nicholl, Andy Ashlee (M40 scorer), Andrew Milne, Edmund Grobel, Lee Lintern and M50 scorers James Baker and Michael McCarthy scored for the men. Great veteran performances were also contributed by Jim Fitzmaurice (2nd M70/1st M75) and Sally Shewell (3rd W55).

Thanks to Duncan for stepping in to direct the event in Rob Carr's absence, and to his team of trusty club stalwarts who helped on the day.

The full results of the 35 SAC runners were:

The full results are here.

Neil Haggertay won the October handicap ahead of Marion Van Lille.

 Chris Desmond is still leading the series with Andrew Hutchinson second and Jim Fitzmaurice third.

 There are just two races left with the next one on 5th November.

 The details are here.

Ten SAC runners took part in the first KXCL match of the season held at Stanhill Farm, Wilmington, including two Juniors, writes James Graham. It was not like a normal cross country meeting as it was a lovely warm, sunny day with the main problem on the course not being mud but rather clouds of dust.

In the Senior Women’s race Jacqui O’Reilly finished in a very creditable 11th place and in the Senior Men’s Darius Sarshar lead the six SAC runners home. The other runners to score for the men’s team were Dan Witt, Andrew Mead and James Graham, with the team currently in 17th place. Chris Desmond and Lyndon Collins also ran in the senior men's race.

Earlier in the day Julia Sackville-West and Ollie Brownridge did extremely well in their first U13 races for the club, finishing 33rd and 15th respectively.

Match 2 takes place on 28th October at Somerhill School, Tonbridge and if anyone would like to take part, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. so that I can register them.

Dan Witt adds: I see the results are up on the Kent League website - I think it's fair to say we struggled to be competitive as maybe we'd have liked in such a large field, one of the biggest I've run in for the Kent League, presumably because of the balmy autumnal weather making it feel like an English Summer's day!

In brief, we fielded a full team in the Senior men's race in which our team of 4 was 17th out of 21 teams. Jacqui fared much better in the Senior Women's race in which she was 11th out of 162 - a very impressive debut. Also, we fielded some juniors that have run very well, for example Ollie in the U13s boys was 15th out of 94. Plus James was second M60 and Richard Pitcairn-Knowles, the only M80, fifth in the M70s.

Let's hope the team fares better this Sunday at the KFL in Knole!

Keith Dowson secured the Kent Grand Prix M50 title with third place (2nd in Kent clubs) in the category at the Ashford 10k on 8 October. Keith was in second place going into this final race of the series and needed a minimum of third M50 from Kent clubs to ensure victory in the Grand Prix. In a tight race, three eligible M50s were within 15 seconds of Keith at the finish, with his nearest challenger from Orpington RR, who led going into the final race, securing six points to Keith's nine.

Andrew Milne was first SAC runner home, finishing just ahead of Dowson, and reversing their positions from the previous GP race, the Sittingbourne 10, seven days earlier. In the Sittingbourne event, Milne and Dowson were the only Sevenoaks AC runners. Keith Dowson reports: "I was 11th in 1:03:57 and 1st Vet 50 (nice tankard!), Andrew was 20th in 1:05:15 which was especially impressive as he ran the mob-match the day before, which I whimped out of". The Sittingbourne results are here.

Nick Humphrey-Taylor and Dan Witt also ran well at Ashford to complete a strong men's team, while Jacqui O'Reilly was fifth and third senior in the women's race.

Keith Dowson is joined as a GP champion by James Graham who had already secured the M60 title by winning six of the first seven races. The GP positions prior to the final race at Ashford are here. The SAC results from Ashford are:

 The full results are here.