It was a great Kent AC performance. Runners in every race, medals and a cup were won.

M50 Report – Race 1 - Although it might have been anticipated that the over 40’s would be challenging for medals, it was perhaps something of a surprise that our over 50’s team came away with the silver team medal on Saturday.

The always dependable Bernie Hutchinson ran an intelligent race starting steadily and moving through the field to finish in a highly creditable 7th position. However, the revelation of the race was Tim Connell running his first race for many years. Tim showed the class that he displayed in an earlier era with the club had not deserted him. Well up in the race for the first 3k his slim training regime and lack of racing slowed him during the latter half of the race. Nevertheless, he still finished 8 th just behind the fast finishing Bernie. Yours truly, Any Gardiner, was third counter - in the 20’s, but still managing to ensure we squeezed out Dulwich from second spot by the narrowest of margins. Danny Mackay also ran solidly to mean we had four running for the first time in recent years.

So with our 40’s running superbly as a team and securing 1 st team medals, the 50’s claiming second spot was an unexpected bonus. Words of praise must go to Tunbridge Wells Harriers for a good course, well set out, together with good changing facilities. The day was capped by indulging in a few post race beers with our old friend John Moores joining us. It was good to reminisce and catch up with John. It seemed fitting that whilst some of us had to leave, John was still getting the beers in with Mickey Barlow. Just going to show that some things never change!

W35 W45 M60 – Race 2

Zoe led home the W45 team in 23rd and the team managed a good 5th place. We also had some solid performances in the other 2 races with Ali coming 13th in the W35 race and Adrian 23rd in the M60 race.

M40 Race 4

Having lost the cup we had won 3 years on the trot to M&M last year, we were keen to have a good performance this year. It was great to have 7 Kent AC runners battling for gold. Len lead us home with a superb run to finish 4th, despite being the oldest member of the M40 team. Then we showed our real strength in depth with Luke, Mick and Andy packing in 9th, 13th and 18th, to complete the 4 to score team. M&M had 1st and 3rd but could not match our team performance and in the end we won back the cup by the huge margin of 39 points. A great team effort. The rest of the team ran well with Felix competing in his first ever county XC champs at the age of 46. The first of many I hope.

Whilst doing the post match analysis in a local hostelry, more great news came in from the senior mens team, winning their third Surrey league fixture on the trot.

Results: http://www.kcaa.org.uk/resultsdec09.htm
Luke

Also - and special thanks to Luke for ensuring we got some strong teams out for this.