National Cross Country champs 2020
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