Good morning TWH’s,
On Saturday, Mr Deighton and I took the long journey up to Weston Park in Telford for the rearranged National Cross Country Champs. This was supposed to take place in February but due to a waterlogged car park, it was rescheduled for a Saturday in September…
The conditions couldn’t have been further from the expected XC norm with bright blue skies and warm sunshine, not a speck of mud was in sight, just long grass.
On arrival it was clear that the numbers were considerably down on the previous events, with only 773 entries in the our category. In 2023 it was a ‘quieter year’ with 1473 entries, down from 2089 entries at Parliament Hill in 2022, hopefully this won’t become a trend. Andrew and I knew that we had our work cut out today not to embarrass ourselves and the club!
Our race was 3 laps, each lap included around 2.5km of uphill just to lose all of the descent in around 40 metres. It made for a tough afternoon, it also allowed the leaders to lap us and fly off into the distance.
We successfully both finished in the top 500 (no one needs to know how many entrants actually finished the race, however it was more than 500 I promise), this is likely to be the highest placing that I’ll achieve. The winner of the race was Hugo Milner who shot off at the start with Derby Athletic club team mate Ben Connor, securing a 1-2 finish. Tonbridge AC’s James Kingston finished 3rd with a great run and looked to be closing on second place, if only there was another kilometre or so…
Niamh Brown won the senior women race ahead of Holly Dixon in 2nd and Gemma Steel taking the last spot on the podium.
Thank you to Tonbridge AC who kindly let us store our bags in their tent, think they appreciated our efforts to travel up and gave us lots of moral support on the course, which was most welcome and needed. Taking the gazebo for the two of us really did seem excessive…
Future national XC races held away from home should/could become a club day away with a few stops on the way back, it’s a great day with a good atmosphere and a rare chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best runners in the country, albeit only for a few seconds and for the eventual winner to be a triathlete…..
Congrats to Mark Mellor and all other harriers that took part in races over the weekend.
Thanks for driving Andrew and for another great harriers day out.
Hope to see lots of you at Parliament Hill in 2025
Martin
