LONDON Heathside just missed out on winning both the men's and women's races in the Cabbage Patch 10-mile event in Twickenham on Sunday. A huge contingent of runners from the Finsbury Park club made the trip...

LONDON Heathside just missed out on winning both the men's and women's races in the 'Cabbage Patch' 10-mile event in Twickenham on Sunday.

A huge contingent of runners from the Finsbury Park club made the trip to the banks of the Thames in south-west London, with 70 finishing the race.

However, the club returned north empty-handed after narrowly coming second in both team events, despite some superb individual runs.

For the men George Stewart again led the way, storming home in 54 minutes 31 seconds to finish in 10th place overall out of 1,509 finishers, and first in the over-40 veteran category, thus winning one of the traditional cabbages on offer.

Paul Lemmon (55:25) was not far behind in 15th place, and Martin Potter (55:48) came in 17th, completing Heathside's scoring three.

It looked good enough to win the gold medals on offer, but Heathside were pipped by three minutes on aggregate times by the winning trio from the Herne Hill Harriers club.

It was the same tale of woe for the women's team as, running in the same race as the men, Sarah Swinhoe was fifth (60:51) and Ella Waldman 12th (64:25). Tess Mewton (65:39) completed the scoring three, but they were two minutes behind winners Dulwich.

However, it was a good day for the club, with six more men breaking the hour mark - Julian Ferraro, Ricardo Suarez-Lee, Leo Burningham, Ken Heney, Gavin Evans and Daniel Miller.

Stewart and Lemmon both moved into the top 10 of the national 10-mile rankings in their age groups, as did Swinhoe, while Ella Waldman is now fourth in the Under-20s rankings over the 10-mile distance.

Highgate Harriers were also present in Twickenham, with Esther Evans taking second place in the women's overall placings and Stephen Whiting running 55.12 to come in 14th.

Highgate's main focus of the weekend, however, was the men's National Six-Stage road-relay in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham.

The six-leg race featured the best distance runners in the country, including Great Britain's reigning European 5,000m champion Mo Farah.

Farah's Newham & Essex Beagles won the event, but Highgate managed a highly creditable 27th of the 93 leading clubs participating.

Peter Nowill had run the first leg in 17:32 and David Bruce (17:47), Henry Dodwell (18:44), Ryan McKinlay (18:47), Peter Downie (19:34) all kept the pace before anchor man Ben Pochee (18:31) brought Highgate home.

This Saturday Highgate will be running in the Liddiard Trophy in Kingsbury, while the next round of the Metropolitan League is not until November 7, ahead of the North London Championships at Parliament Hill on November 14.

n ANGELA Howe of London Heathside was the first woman home in the Jill Oliver 10k road race at Lea Valley on Sunday. For the men Liam Proudlock (fourth) and Jacob Howe (sixth) also had strong performances.