Southern XC - Another Storming Performance
| South of England Champs | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Saturday, 30th January 2010 | results | |
| Details | Parliament Hill Fields, London | ||
| Distance | 14 kms | ||
| Event type | XC | ||
Despite the 5 week break from racing, due to cancelled races, Kent AC maintained their great progress this year on the Cross Country front. At the traditional home of Cross country, Hampstead's Parliament Hill, we matched our best ever performance in the 'Southern ' with a string of fine runs to finish 5th team in this top level event . It matches all the best teams in the South of England over an extremely testing 9 mile course which was at it's muddy best despite the heavy frost the night before.
A fantastic debut run from Florian Neuschwander led the way for our hard men as he led the 1,000 strong field up the first two hills to really raise our profile. He then took a heavy fall on his back but worked his way back through the field to finish 5th with a great grin on his face as he 'enjoyed the challenge'. Team Captain James Connor also produced one of his best ever runs to work his way through the top of the field to come home 18th - his best ever in this race as he took some big names apart.
Our 'new boy', John Gilbert, showed what a great prospect he is with a great debut run at this most testing of courses to come in 30th despite being ill the week before which must have sapped some of his strength. On a day where nearly everyone seemed to pull out good runs Graeme Garner produced a real 'breakthrough run' to come home 77th,looking good all the way and showing us some if his obvious talent.
Our last two scorers were key to our success on the day and Michael Claff pulled out yet another solid run to finish 113th - despite his limited training and lack of proper sessions! There are not many 800/ 400m men who relish the mud like Andy Morton and yet again he stormed through the field to overtake nearly 100 runners and really help the team cause to finish 123rd.
We also had Andrew Dunwoody (144th) and Luke Armitage (having a great run to come in 198th, beating a whole host of good Vets ) so we had good back up on the day. Stuart Scott made a welcome return to racing here as did Lee Haze but despite their efforts we failed to close in the 12 to score event illustrating that some of our middle order runners need to get out more often for the club. If they did they will realise that they can easily cope at this level and can contribute to great days such as this as well as they can enjoy the good banter in the pub afterwards!
Ken
