English Cross Country Champs
at
Wollaton Park, Nottingham on Sat 22nd Feb 2020
This unique event of the year – the
National CC – lived up to all its promise with a very demanding course that had
real swamp like conditions on parts of it and upheld to its tradition of being
a true test of stamina and endurance.
Not to
be put off by such a demanding test our own John Gilbert pushed on early in the
second pack in about 12th place and stuck to his task really well to
come home in fine 15th place. He had a great battle with his old
training partner Max Nicholls, who runs for us in the Surrey CC League, with
Max having his best ever National coming home in 11th place. Another
Second Claim athlete for us was Ross Braden who worked through really well to
also claim his best ever result of 39th.
Our second scorer was Jim Allchin who
despite feeling unwell stuck to his task well as he came home in 93rd position.
There is a top 50 placing in his legs provided that he’s in full health. Next
man home was the man who had travelled from N Wales -our own Russell Bentley –
who set off well in about 60th place and was then brought down –
resulting in him dropping out of the first 100 runners. He responded well to a
rallying call near the end and got a move on to come inside the first 100 which at least made the traveling worthwhile.
Next up came ‘the best run of the day’ from
Cedric Hauben who responded well to the crowded field – something he was not
used to as he comes from Belgium – but he is a quick learner and very good
runner as he showed with a fine 128th position. An amazing run was
produced by Dame Dibaba as he stuck to his task really well to come home in 277th
position – all this despite a long standing injury. Our last scoring
runner was Pete Lighting who adopted his
usual strategy of working his way through the field and finally coming home in 290th position.
Our total of 902 points put us in 11th
position as a club in a race where well over 200 clubs competed.
A recent new recruit George Russell was our next guy home as he ran really well in his debut National
and earnt a placing of 304th for his great effort – we expect next year that he will be in the 100’s
. Next up was Chris Greenwood who suffered badly from two stitches and then our
9th scorer was Neil Phillips who came home in 329th position
to close our 9 to score team and earn us 10th position as a club.
We had 25 runners in total with all of them comfortably in the top half of the field and all of whom, for a variety of reasons, can look forward to Parliament Hill next year.
ENGLISH
CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPS RESULTS
Wollaton Park, Nottingham on Sat 22nd
Feb 2020
15th
John Gilbert 45 26
93rd Jim Allchin 47 41
99th Russell Bentley 47 49
128th Cedric Hauben 48 33
277th Dame Dibaba 51 20
290th Peter Lighting 51 36
304th George Russell 51 51
307th Chris Greenwood 51 59
329th Neil
Phillips 52 14
360th Dave Morgan 52 41
403rd Ian Ellwood 53 21
409th Barny Day
53 31
451st Dan Ansell 54 04
475th
Cameron Forrest 54 21
478th
Tomas Sloan 54 23
502nd
Dan Pettitt 54 42
504th
Calum Fraser 54 43
512th
Thomas Thain 54 51
645th
Jake English 56 58
734th
Michael Duncan 58 25
839th
Arif Merali 59 59
845th
Ron Taylor 60 05
880th
Len Reilly 60 26
914th
Khawaja Shahabidden 61 00
937th
Chris Quaid 61 27
2204 finishers
Team: 11th KENT AC
902 pts
Team: (9 to score) 10th Kent AC
1842 pts