The first championship race of the Cross Country season was a mixed day for the club with some great results and some disappointments on the day.

The really good news was the storming run from Team Captain John Gilbert who took the field apart as he took an early lead and then pulled away steadily. He really pushed hard up the long hills as he increased his lead to nearly a minute by the end of the 5.5 mile course to retain the trophy despite deliberately holding back the start of his winter training this year.

An off colour Chris Greenwood, carrying an injury as well, finished strongly to get back up to 14th by the end and solid runs from Paul Bell (21st) and Stuart Beaney (22nd) closed the 4 to score team competition to put us in a disappointing 4th place overall.

However with improving Jack Wilson in 24th place, a much improved Calum Fraser in 33rd, George Quinn in 38th and David Peleckas in 39th completing our B team we had the good news that they were 1st B team overall.

We had a good turnout of 14 runners on the day in the field of 150 runners with good runs from Richard Archer (53rd) and Simon Austin (91st) in particular.

The other disappointment on the day was the organisers “forgetting” to disqualify a late entry on the day from Herne Hill Harriers, who had notified the organiser, and this error cost us the 8 to score trophy.

Given that Herne Hill Harriers are running away with the 10 to score Div 1 of the Surrey CC League
this year our improving depth gives us optimism for our near certain arrival in Div 1 next season. None the less we began the long trek to the station secure in the knowledge that we had ‘won’ that trophy to go with the winner’s trophy in John Gilbert’s bag.

Ken