Cross Country 2017/18

[Travs]

Seems to be a few aficionados of XC on here so thought I'd start a topic about the coming season...

Kicks off today down here in the midlands with Midlands Relays in Wolverhampton, 4 x 6km legs. We've got a masters team in.

Plenty of relay type events in the coming few weeks, then the Birmingham season kicks off in November. We are Div1 so I fully expect to be well into the bottom half of placing come the league season.

First full season of xc, so should be a busy winter coupled with the obligatory fell races.

[Yaks]

First event in the Scottish East District League today at Stirling Uni - I'm expecting a bit of a mudbath after all the rain we've had.

Did a road marathon last weekend, so will be even further down the field than usual. All good fun though !!

[Travs]

Good luck today Yaks, I hope it went well...

Interesting day at the relays. I was apprehended approximately 5 minutes before I was due to start, and duly informed that we were disqualified! All of the other Masters events are v35's and our powers-that-be had assumed the same. Unfortunately this particular event is v40, rendering me as an ineligible runner. With only the four of us from the club actually in attendance, we were out of the running (literally), but they fortunately allowed us to run anyway.

Tough course, I think the fastest runners went through in 20-something minutes. I managed 25:36 which I was initially unhappy with, feeling very stiff in the legs from the past weeks training. But on seeing my three team-mates come in 40 seconds slower, dead equal, and 50 seconds faster, put me bang in the middle so can't have been too bad...

Felt that I fell apart a little on the 2nd lap, but only lost one place so perhaps I'm too hard on myself. I was being chased down hard by a group of 4 or 5 for most of the 2nd lap, and thought it was a matter of time, but hitting the hilly final km stopped the chasers in their tracks and I was able to hold them off quite comfortably.

Nice start to the season, with the exception of the "administrative cockup"

[RaceTheSweeper]

That is a shame Travs!
Now for my take on the XC .. I LOVE IT! What is not to love about the XC. I'm XC coordinator for the men and women teams in our Club and I have been told that I'm rather "over excitable and annoyingly over enthusiastic!" I took this as a compliment. I loved it at school and would get home, get me shorts on and straight out over the fields as soon as I got in while mum cooked tea.
A big change is when I raced as a youngster the field was following my butt ... Now, I'm following everyone else butt haha.
However, there is no change 40yrs later of how much I love the XC. The noise of the field, the mass of Club tents, the amazing Team camaraderie. We are affiliated to North Staff League and the Manchester League and ours has already started.
Yayyyyyy, let the fun carry on :-)

[Travs]

Nice one RTS... good to have people keeping the sport going..!

Is your hubby racing at the Roaches next month? I assume quite local to you. Tough race, almost like an xc course in its nature, but with brutal hills.

[RaceTheSweeper]

Nice one RTS... good to have people keeping the sport going..!

Is your hubby racing at the Roaches next month? I assume quite local to you. Tough race, almost like an xc course in its nature, but with brutal hills.

yes, he is Travs. It will be his 1st in 6 weeks after a calf problem. He has re-done his spreadsheet and he will still be on target so all good as long as he is back for this one. He will be taking it easy now until the end of the Challenge :-) See you there

[Yaks]

Stirling was very much the mudbath I expected it to be, and my post-marathon legs felt very much as I expected them to.

Still, I finished 4th counter ( 6 to count ) for our club, so was worth putting a bit of effort in.

[anthonykay]

That is a shame Travs!
Now for my take on the XC .. I LOVE IT! What is not to love about the XC.

What is not to love about XC? Boring courses around the sides of playing fields.

Having said that, there are also plenty of good XC courses around. Curiously, most of the best ones that I have run are just outside London: Coulsdon, Hayes (Kent), Trent Park, Epping Forest.

I loved it at school and would get home, get me shorts on and straight out over the fields as soon as I got in while mum cooked tea.

Ah yes, cross-country at school. We had something called The Steeplechase every February, compulsory for everyone unless you could produce a medical note. Admitting that you enjoyed the steeplechase would have been as naff as admitting that you liked brussels sprouts. [For the record, I do like brussels sprouts.] Having established myself as totally hopeless at rugby or any other sport involving a ball, I nevertheless came in the top third of the Steeplechase field in some years, with no training apart from the runs we had to do round the school playing fields on a few Wednesday afternoons leading up to the big event. It wasn't until I went to University that I discovered that running could actually be an enjoyable recreation, and one that I was moderately good at.

[that_fjell_guy]

I've always really enjoyed the XC. Unfortunately my job no longer allows regular attendance and my league is over the other side of the country as I'm first counter for New Marske and Settle (...my 'redundant' 2nd claim club) don't seem to compete in local league. I sometimes get one or two league races in and a champs race if I'm lucky and fit enough. I do find the quality of course can be hit and miss but you take what comes.

[Travs]

I'm enjoying the team aspect of the cross country (and to a lesser extent the road relays etc). When I run on the fells, I am always the only one from my club, although may be dragging someone along to the Cardington Cracker in December!

I'm looking at it as a fantastic way to keep competitive and hopefully build my speed and fitness through the winter.

I was always terrible at running at school, so I thought. In the obligatory playground races I was always at the back (i still don't like short distance races!!), but entered the school cross country aged around 12 and somehow came 2nd. So went to the town cross-country and stunned myself by coming 5th. I'm pretty sure i was then in the county team, but not 100% on that. Kept it up to some extent through secondary school but really football took over.

In the last few years which i played football my fitness really went downhill (too much time in the pub), but when i got heavily into Muay Thai my running picked up again as it was needed as part of traditional fight build-up, to maintain weight and cardio fitness, as well as sprints. here i am a couple of years later with fell running as my main passion and after joining a club it's the natural thing for me to get back to the cross country.