The National Cross Country Championships

It was another enjoyable and successful day for Manx Harriers at the National Cross Country Championships at Roundhay Park in Leeds on Saturday. There were some great individual runs and a very good performance from the senior men’s team. The day was cold, dry and still, but the very heavy rain on Thursday and Friday, added to the melted snow of earlier in the week, made it very wet underfoot. Parts of the course were classic cross-country mudbaths by the end of the afternoon, particularly the finishing straight.The first race of the day was the under-15 boys. All three Manx competitors, Sammy Holt, Stephen Garrett and Oliver Dickinson were debutants in the event, and all did very well. They finished 134^th, 251^st and 313^th respectively out of a field of just under 400 and looked to be enjoying the race. They all negotiated the steep ‘Hill 60’ strongly and should take a lot of satisfaction from their performances. Next up was the junior (u20) women’s race. This race had the smallest field of the day, just under 100, but what it lacked in quantity it made up for in quality with some very classy athletes in the field. Gemma Astin made a very positive start and was vying for the lead in the first kilometre of the race. By the early stages of the second lap she had dropped back to just inside the top 20 and looked to be struggling a little after her fast start, but she then rallied impressively and finished very strongly to come home in 16^th place, yet another excellent result. She can be confident of going well in the Inter-Counties in Birmingham a week on Saturday, and I have a feeling she will do even better in that race. There were then several races with no Manx representation, Sarah Astin missing the u17 women’s race following a recent injury niggle. By the time Terence George blasted off in the u13 boys race in the early afternoon the course was getting really churned up in places. Terence was immediately given a taste of the rough and tumble of big cross country events by being spiked and falling, but he recovered well and ran really well throughout to finish just outside the top third of the field of nearly 400. This was a great effort on his debut in the event. Oh, and if there had been a fashion award, he would definitely have won it for his ‘shorts’!! The 8k Senior Women’s race was next, with a bumper field of 543. Gail Griffiths and Rosy Craine both ran really well to finish 101^st and 231^st respectively. Gail has improved consistently in each of her four Nationals. In 2007 she finished just below halfway, in 2008 she was in the top third, last year she was in the top quarter and this time she was well inside the top fifth. She is looking for another good performance in the Inter Counties a week on Saturday. Rosy was making her debut in the National, and continued her excellent first full season in athletics with a strong run. She has been a great addition to the athletics scene over the winter and is still improving rapidly. The experience of an event like this will be very beneficial. The final event was the senior men’s race over a very heavy 12k, with a cracking entry of 1428. It’s a fantastic sight to see this mass of runners charging up the first field, and by the second lap the whole course was thick with runners. I was trapped on the far side of the course, and for about 10 minutes there was not one single gap even of a couple of seconds to enable me to cross the course! Kevin Loundes produced his second successive placing in the 60s in this event, his 65^th place following his 62^nd last year. Only Keith Gerrard has ever achieved a higher placing by a Manx athlete in the event. Kevin attacked the first lap hard and was holding a position in the 30s throughout most of the first lap. He paid a little for this on the second lap but then held on well on the third and final circuit. Martin Malone continued his relentless improvement with a 173^rd place finish, an improvement of 69 places on last year. His approach was different to Kevin’s with a fairly cautious start before he pushed on strongly in the second half of the race. Mike Garrett debuted in the event and continued his best-ever cross country season with a placing well inside the top quarter of the field. Andy Watson has also enjoyed a fine season and underlined that with another really strong and consistent performance. The six scoring positions were completed by Chris Quine and Darren Gray, who finished just eight places apart. Chris was competing in his first National since 2004 and should have been pleased with his result, while Darren never stopped battling despite lacking in fitness after a difficult winter when he has missed a lot of training through injury and illness. Andy Fox has also had problems this winter and was racing for the first time for two months. It was the most demanding course possible for a comeback after illness and Andy found it hard going but also kept battling away for a finish. The team finished in 26^th place, exactly the same as last year. The 107 clubs that scored included some of the top distance running clubs in England, so this was a great performance by a club from the Isle of Man. Many thanks go to Andy for organising the trip which was enjoyed by all. The National is an event that every cross country runner should do at least once. Make sure you go next year!!  David Griffiths 2^nd March 2010

London 2009

Parliament Hill

There were some cracking performances from the Manx Harriers athletes on a long, hilly, muddy and very tough course at Parliament Hill in London on Saturday. The weather conditions were superb – a lovely sunny early spring day – but parts of the course had become absolute quagmires by the end of the afternoon. It is a fiendishly undulating course with very few flat sections – you are going either up or down for about 90% of the course. Allan Thomson’s infamous comments on the www.manxathletics.com forum a couple of years ago (about cross-country courses being far too easy) were recalled by several of the team after the race. I think Allan might change his opinion if he ever runs at Parliament Hill in the conditions we had on Saturday! Pride of place has to go to Kevin Loundes who produced yet another outstanding performance to finish in 62^nd place out of 1455 finishers (the biggest field for this event for 10 years). Keith Gerrard is the only Manx athlete who has ever finished higher in this event. Kevin looked strong and in complete control throughout the 12k race, and can look forward with great confidence to representing Lancashire in the Inter Counties Championships at Nottingham a week on Saturday. That is a different type of course, but I am sure Kevin will go just as well. In such a big field of runners it was remarkable to see three Manx Harriers athletes as closely matched as Ed Gumbley, Darren Gray and Martin Malone were. The three of them were never more than a few seconds apart all though the race. Ed is coming back into good form after a few injury problems following the Berlin Marathon last autumn, and former triathlete Martin made an excellent debut in the event, continuing his huge improvement this winter since he decided to concentrate exclusively on running. Darren had been unwell for a few days before the race and was slightly below par by his recent standards, but still performed with typical determination for his best finishing position since 2004. The six counters for the team were completed by Andy Fox and Andy Watson. Andy Fox has run this race more than any other local athlete and actually looked like he was enjoying himself on a couple of occasions during the race! Andy Watson concentrates more on fell running these days and was making a rare cross country appearance, but ran well to finish just outside the first 500. I think Dave Newton and Les Brown both enjoyed their races, although you wouldn’t have guessed by their facial expressions! Both ran very well. The team finished in 26^th place out of 112, which was a brilliant performance. We were up against the best clubs in the UK, and beat many well-known clubs with far bigger memberships than ours. This was possibly a better performance in relative terms than our 22^nd out of 72 in the poorly-supported event at Sunderland two years ago. Gail Griffiths was our only competitor in the 8k Senior Women’s race, and produced another excellent performance to finish in 141^st place out of 546 (as in the men’s race, this was the biggest field for many years). In her debut in the event two years ago she finished just below halfway, last year she was in the top third, this time she almost broke into the top quarter. Really consistent progression and another very fine run. Going back to the Senior Men’s race, Keith Gerrard was running for Newham & Essex Beagles with high hopes of getting into the top 10 for the first time. He held a clear seventh place for most of the first half of the race and looked to be in great form. However he appeared to have gone missing on the second lap, but eventually appeared more than a minute late, moving very gingerly and holding his side. To his great credit he managed to get over his problem and battled his way back up to 24^th place – still an excellent result by most standards but not what Keith was hoping for. Let’s hope he has better luck in the Inter Counties on 7^th March, which is the trial event for the World Cross Country Championships. Well done to all the Manx athletes who competed, and many thanks go to Andy Fox for organising the trip for the umpteenth time. David Griffiths 23^rd February 2009

Staffordshire 2008

More ups than downs at Alton Towers!

 

It was another highly successful day for Manx athletes at the National Cross Country Championships held last Saturday on land adjoining the Alton Towers Theme Park in Staffordshire. A total of 11 Manx athletes were in action, nine from Manx Harriers, one from Northern AC and one from Newham and Essex Beagles.

The National is a superb event, being both the oldest and the biggest (in terms of competitor numbers) cross country race of the year. This year’s course was excellent, with lots of fast flowing sections, some long fast descents and one absolute killer of a hill on each lap. A glaring error by the organisers was over the course measurement – every race was much shorter than the advertised distances, in the case of the Senior Men’s race by well over 2k.

The first Manx athlete in action was Gemma Astin in the under-17 women’s race, which was run concurrently with the junior (u20) women. Gemma got off to a great start, and in the early stages was within touching distance of the leaders. She perhaps paid for this fast start on arrival at the hill which she found hard going, but rallied well to finish strongly. Her 32^nd place was excellent in such a high-class field, particularly in her first year in the age group.

Next was Sarah Astin in the u15 girls, and she produced another stunning performance to finish 14^th out of 300. Like Gemma, she is in her first year in the age group. She matched strides with some very high quality athletes, several of whom are a year older than her, and looked in complete control throughout. This was a truly outstanding run.

Ryan Fairclough of Northern AC went in the junior (u20) men’s race, but aggravated a previous ankle injury on one of the rutted sections of the course on the first lap. This unfortunately forced his retirement from the race.

Gail Griffiths underlined her great progress this winter with a fine run in the senior women’s race. Her finishing position of 154^th out of nearly 500 was a significant improvement on her debut performance last year. She judged the pace well and finished very strongly.

There were six competitors in the senior men’s race, giving us a team in the six-man event. Although not as strong as the nine-man team we had at Sunderland last year, they did extremely well to finish 38^th. Kevin Loundes led the team home in an excellent 130^th place, a huge advance on his event debut last year. For the first time he got the better of John Halligan who finished 148^th. The ever-consistent Darren Gray was 274^th - in the previous two years he has been 273^rd and 275th! Next came Andy Fox in 373^rd, then Andy Duncan who started cautiously before upping the pace in the second half of the race to finish 539^th. Les Brown didn’t enjoy the mud in the finishing straight, but battled away well in his event debut to come home in 1045^th place and complete the scoring for the team.

Keith Gerrard was running for Newham & Essex Beagles, and finished in a superb 14^th place, an improvement of five places from his debut in the senior age group last year. This was a really classy run and will hopefully set him up for another cracking run in the Inter Counties in March.

Thanks as always go to Andy Fox for organising another very enjoyable and worthwhile weekend at the National.

David Griffiths 25^th February 2008

Sunderland 2007

Herrington Park

The Manx Harriers squad produced magnificent performances all round on Saturday at a very windy Herrington Park in Sunderland. The general consensus was that this brand new venue was superb for the championships, as was the event organisation.
Every member of the team performed with great credit. We have almost come to expect outstanding performances from the Astin sisters Sarah and Gemma, which is exactly what they produced yet again. Gemma was 28^th in the under-15 girls race, running strongly throughout, and Sarah finished in a fantastic eighth position out of 268 in the u13 girls race. We are fairly sure that Sarah is only the second Manx athlete ever to finish in the top 10 in this event, Keith Gerrard being the other. Conor Delanbanque (whose surname was spectacularly misspelled in the official programme!) ran a really controlled race and quickly learned from his over-enthusiastic start in the Inter Counties event at Nottingham recently. Andrew Newton found his longest ever cross country race hard going, but stuck in there really well and will be better for the experience. Gail Griffiths continued her progress back to full fitness with a strong run over what was also her longest cross country event to date.
And every one of the senior men's team ran tremendously well - nine team members, and not a below-par performance among them. Well done to John Halligan, Ed Gumbley, Andy Fox, Darren Gray, Kevin Loundes, Andy Duncan, Andy Watson, Nick Percival and Dave Newton. As Andy Fox pointed out on the journey home, to finish 11th in the country in competition with some huge clubs containing full-time athletes is comparable to a Manx football club competing against Premiership opposition. And a great run from the 'Beagle' Keith Gerrard as well, who is now just about back to his best after a difficult few months with injury problems.
Many thanks to Andy for organising the trip - I hope an even bigger squad travels to next year's event which will be held in the Midlands.

Also worth mentioning - at the conclusion of the races, a local gent came up to us to check that we were from the Isle of Man. He then said 'You'll know Ian and Keith Callister, then - Ian stayed with me when he did the Great North Run a few years back'! Ian confirmed that this was Peter Carmichael.
And at least two of last year's Easter Festival stars were competing. Men's champion James Walsh, who returns this year, was beaten by Keith Gerrard on this occasion. And women’s runner-up Olivia Walwyn was in action in the senior women’s race - she told me she is not doing the Festival this year as her club don't have a team, but she hopes to return in the future.

David Griffiths 13^th March 2007