South Cross Country

Saucony South Cross Country

That's right I ran cross country and after arriving (after driving past the turn off about 5 times!). I met up with the rest of the team and went for a jog around the course to see what I had let myself in for, after hitting the first river of mud I started to think 15mm spikes wouldn't be much good. Basically the course was going to very muddy the whole way apart from the top of the hill where I get 300m of nice hard grass.

The field went off quite fast and was around 70^th going up the first climb passing fellow club members Pete Willis and Will Cockerell just before we came back down the other side, by now I had already lost sight of the leaders. Second lap and the course was even worse than the first lap and I was struggling to stay up right on some parts. I was slowly moving through the places and went ahead of James Kelly who is a better cross country runner than me, so was a bit happier now. The crowd where trying to help as much as possible but I was afraid to look up in case I lost my footing and fell in a pit of mud which I thought was starting to smell now.

3^rd lap I went past good friend Mark Pollard but on hitting a climb his strength took him back ahead, once on hard ground I rolled past again and then stayed ahead. My breathing was fine and didn't push in to any real trouble but the legs were feeling the climbs with the strength getting sucked out in the real heavy patches.

Finally after hearing 'Adam' being shouted at every corner for about 5minutes I realised it was Adam Bowden after thinking it must be a local guy that everyone knows. I moved in to the top 30 positions coming in to the home straight which I was quite pleased with quite a strong cross country field. Phil Wicks was having a cup of tea by the time I got back to change kit which is when I realised I'll never win this race!

Simx