KXCL 2019 – Race 1 – Swanley

Our XC captains blew the cross-country conch on Saturday morning to assemble 11 ladies and 30 male harriers to compete in the first race of the season at Swanley Park.

The course was relatively flat with some interesting sights – a few trees, a miniature railway and a big pond – and the conditions were grey and wet, but then would it even be XC if it wasn’t a little bit miserable?? The ladies and v70 mens race was 5K-ish of laps, whilst the rest of the mens categories raced 10K-ish.

Ad alert – It had been a while since I last did XC and i’d forgotten that my spikes were too small. Whilst i’m loathed to part with my leopard print ‘speed demons’, i’m even more loathed to part with my toenails, so if anyone wants to take them out for a whirl at Somerhill i’ll bring them along. Don’t all jump at once… (Carl and Gemma have already shown interest).

I couldn’t spectate the ladies race, so can only comment on my own experience. As usual, I set off too fast in the first lap (it’s the leopard print) and looked around to find myself in 8th place and surrounded by TACs: “Hmmm… I’m going to pay for this in a moment”. Sure enough I did and just about managed to finish in the top 20 by the skin of my teeth.

The rest of the ladies ran solid races with Michelle Bradshaw notably finishing 3rd in the W55 category and both Jillian Holford and Lucille Joannes finishing in the top 10 in their categories. Ian Bracken (M75) also raced the 5K course and finished 11th M70.

The mens race was fun to spectate, with lots of excellent performances. William Levett was lead harrier for most of the race, but went into limp-home-mode in the last lap with an injury, still managing to finish 3rd Harrier. There was a battle on for 1st, with Alex managing to hold off the Howey in the last lap, but Andy didn’t disappoint, with an impressive 3rd place finish in the M50 category. Other notable performances were by Hadders, who stormed his way up the field finishing in the top 10 for M50, as well as the epic sprint battle between Casper Morris and Adam Dennis at the finish, resulting in a tie.

Special thanks to those who came to support and take photos in the rain. Afterwards we all huddled under the TWH tent for some luvleh cakes, before heading to the Bo Peep for a de-brief, where we met 1 week old Rafferty (little Adam Dennis) and Hadders had a smashing time.

Full results are attached. There were loads of spreadsheets to trawl through for a Sunday evening, so apologies if i’ve missed anybody.