Cross Country 2023-24

[Travs]

2nd league fixture of the season today, back at the excellent Aldersley Village course in Wolverhampton, which is where i ran well in the Midlands Relays in October.

This time, about 80% of the course was frozen solid, and the other 20% was very slippy. I've ran XC in some terrible weather, and in the snow, but i don't recall ever running on ground which was totally frozen. It just about took a spike, although i considered wearing x-talons initially.

Personally, another good performance, my pace is looking considerably quicker than last season, and on tough ground today. Was 9th counter so scored in the 2nd six, and i think 3rd master, so made the first team there.

In October i averaged 3:54/km, but that was on good terrain and only 6km. Today averaged 4:00/km over 10km, so i was fairly pleased with that. A measure of the strength of the league..... there were a number of clubmates running today who are posting mid 18's in the Cov parkrun, and i dusted them by over a minute.... and i was still only about 150th today. If you're not capable of getting near 16mins for 5km then you can kiss goodbye to finishing in the top 100.

Team-wise, not seen results yet, but we had a stronger team than the first fixture and hopefully our firsts have pulled away a bit from any potential relegation danger.

Next one is in a fortnight.... the Warwickshire Champs at Warley Woods, Smethwick, probably my favourite XC course of all. Last year we won the team event, and i picked up a bronze in the masters team, hopefully we can have a similarly decent day.

[PeteS]

Next one is in a fortnight.... the Warwickshire Champs at Warley Woods, Smethwick, probably my favourite XC course of all. Last year we won the team event, and i picked up a bronze in the masters team, hopefully we can have a similarly decent day.

Ah - my neck of the woods (excuse the pun!) Will try and pop down and say hello.

[Travs]

Ah - my neck of the woods (excuse the pun!) Will try and pop down and say hello.

We are also at Warley Woods for a league fixture in mid January.

[PeteS]

We are also at Warley Woods for a league fixture in mid January.

Very slippery around there at the moment and the 'stream' in the dip has water which shows you how wet it has been. The boggy end will no doubt be a quagmire after the snow and thaw. (There used to be a pond many years ago but was filled in, I think sometime in the 80s - no doubt some health and safety assessment deemed it a drowning risk. Now you are only likely to slip in the mud a break a limb. Huge improvement...)

[Travs]

County Champs today on a lovely (if windy) day in sunny Smethwick.

Good to see PeteS before the race!

As Pete alluded to in the bike thread, the club had a reasonable day...

In the ladies we took gold and silver, and obviously then the team gold as well.

In the men's our best runner was 50/50 on whether to run due to an injury, and decided against it in the warm up. This tipped the balance in favour of the mighty Birchfield Harriers, and we had to settle for silver.

In the masters i was 3rd counter and grabbed a bronze team medal for the bookshelf....

Personally, i didn't feel that i ran particularly well... it should be a course that suits me, but i didn't make much headway on either the ups or downs... although my best parts were immediately after the ups, when i assume others were suffering but i was able to push on.

I didn't have a terrible day, i was roughly in the position in relation to my clubmates as the last league race. Although i'd hoped to really have a crack at a couple of faster guys today and give them a run, but it was clear within a couple of km that it wasn't going to happen.... i did get held up at the start due to some slow runners who decided to start on the front row... this ended up in a bit of chaos and i was spiked twice... by the time i'd removed myself from the holdup i had quite a bit of blood and i was well back from where i'd have liked to be.

[Witton Park]

Started the course setup today for the Lancs XC Champs at Witton with help from Stevie Dux from Rossy.

Finishing off in the morning from 8:00am.

Races start at 11.00am

Going to be a muddy one.

[Llani Boy]

I'm running in the Derbyshire XC champs tomorrow at Bulwell in Nottingham.

Having seen the flooding in Nottingham today on the TV I've been expecting an e-mail to say they have been cancelled!

[anthonykay]

I'm running in the Derbyshire XC champs tomorrow at Bulwell in Nottingham.

Having seen the flooding in Nottingham today on the TV I've been expecting an e-mail to say they have been cancelled!

Excuse the obvious question, but why are the Derbyshire champs in Nottinghamshire? After all it's not as if you haven't got any mud in Derbyshire.

[Llani Boy]

Excuse the obvious question, but why are the Derbyshire champs in Nottinghamshire? After all it's not as if you haven't got any mud in Derbyshire.

I knew I would be asked that by someone Anthony.

Notts and Derbys run their championship together and alternate the venues between the counties. I think they do this to make it a bigger event, due to the smaller number of runners entered for each county. It probably also saves some money for the associations.

One problem is that unless you know which club all the vests belong to you do not know who you are actually racing against. To help, I recall from previous events that one county wears a number front and back and the other front only but in the heat of battle you can forget how many numbers you are displaying!

Oh, I also recall that they were in Notts last year too, as the Derbyshire venue had a few puddles and the council didn't want their precious grass to become muddy so they were moved at the last minute.

[Graham Breeze]

I also recall that they were in Notts last year too, as the Derbyshire venue had a few puddles and the council didn't want their precious grass to become muddy so they were moved at the last minute.

One long standing historical venue for West Yorkshire XC events is Nunroyd Park in Guiseley. They are organised by one of my old clubs: Skyrac AC.

The runners tend to leave a trail of, shall we say, darkened grass along the race route.

One wet year the Council received a lots of complaints about this - from dog walkers!