Sunday Summary 15 November 2009

Normal cross country weather prevals

UKA McCain UK Cross Country Challenge

Dean Lacy travelled to gateshead for the UK Athletics Cross Country Challenge. Battling tough conditions, Dean finished 17 out of 65 runners compared to last years finish position of 30th. His time of 29:47 was also better than last years time of 30:37.

Winner was Michael Skinner in a time of 28:14

Kent Cross Country League

A storm of gail force winds and lashing rain bought "proper" cross country weather to the Kent Cross Country League at Swanley Park on Saturday. This didn't stop many hardy Cambridge Harriers lacing up there shoes for a challenging afternoon of running.

Mark Cross wishes to thank all the club members who volunteered to help at the match in these difficult conditions. Pat Austin and Keith Tanner were early risers to assist in marking out the course and Ashley Blackmore, Martin Hawkins, Graham Maynard and Russell Williams were marshalls for the races.

 

Big thanks and gratitude must also go to Swanley and District AC as the main race organisers, stepping in despite not having a team in the Kent League.

Girls

Lucy Daniel was the sole U13 girl to race for Cambridge Harriers at Swanley. Undeterred by the weather, she battled through the wind and rain to gain 22nd place from the 34 runners.

Georgena Reney, Megan Williams and Laura Deacon turned out for the U15s. Their respective placings of 13, 15 and 22nd from the 30 runners gained them the 3rd team spot.

Boys

There were no scoring teams for the boys at Swanley, due to injuries and commitments.

Performance of the day came from Jamie Grain in the under 13 race. In his debut season, Jamie gained 19th and 16th places in the previous two races in the Kent League. After training hard of late, he clubg to 4th place and sprinted through the finish to gain a brilliant 3rd. Also improving for the under 13's was James Aves-White. Despite bringing up the field again, the niggles deserted him and enabled him to gain his best time of the season so far and close the gap on the rest of the field.

Joseph Epps made his seasons debut in the U15 race, but went to the start carrying a toublesome heal. This hampered Joseph who battled hard and came though the finish line frustraited and in pain in 38th from the 40 runners. He can certainly be proud of his efforts.

As there was no Senior Mens race, there was a more challenging field than usual for the McDonald twins as some U20's who compete in the senior race dropped down to the younger age group.. Fresh from the one miles Lord Mayors race in London in the morning, Robert and Alisdair once again put in a late surge and gained 2nd and 6th place respectively.

Women

Five runners turned out for the Senior Women and the team took another credible 7th place at Swanley despite missing Kate Aldridge with flu and Chris Bond getting stitch half way round.

Theodora Huggins had a good first outing over the country despite the conditions.

Overall the team remains 7th in the team championships with one race to go.

Roaches Fell Race

Brand new Cambridge Harriers member, Chris Rogers took on the Roaches Fell Race in the Peak District last weekend. A notorious race, encompassing all the elements of tough cross-country and fell races. An out and back 15 miles of arduous terrain with 3,700 feet of climbing in total, crossing acres of knee deep mud, a farmyard ankle deep in cow-slurry and a river crossing - all twice of course! Chris gives his account of the day.

 

"I thought this being a B-Long rated race would be a good introduction to the longer and tougher races, this being only my third official fell race. In fact, this race averages 249 feet / mile, so at the upper extreme of the B rating (A rating >= 250 feet / mile)...

 

205 runners set off after a minute's silence in view of it being Remebrance Sunday. The first part of the race saw me overextending myself on the way to the first summit - the Roaches - and left me feeling sick on the descent to the river crossing. Thankfully by the halway point - the climb of the very impressively conical summit of Shutlingsloe - I recovered somewhat, enjoying flying back down the descent. Enough to make it back to my pre-arranged support point on the Roaches where a good friend was waiting with an electrolytes drink for me. Unfortunately this didn't prevent hard cramps setting in to my legs as soon as I hit the flat hard surface of the short road section before the final descent and second crossing of the knee deep mud and ankle deep cow-slurry... Finally I crossed the finishing line in a time of 3:17:13 in 156th place.

 

A memorable race that I'll be back for next year with a view to shaving off at least 17 minutes to get a sub 3 hour time. Maybe I can even persuade some of our other fell-runners for next year too ! Many thanks to the race organisers and marshalls for all their hard work."

Olympians and previous illustrious members

We have begun developing profiles of the clubs olympians and illustrious members. Please have a look and be inspitred on the Olympians page.

If you have any details, stories or stats of our illutrious members from the past, please email us cambridgeharrierspress@hotmail.com or click here

New address!

You can now access the Cambridge Harriers website through an eaiser to remember address, cambridgeharriers.net. This is in addition to the existing address.