On Saturday, I travelled to Oxford to compete in the South of England Masters’ Cross Country Championships (and fetch Rob from university). This was my fourth cross country weekend in a row, having previously run in the quaintly named ‘Herbert’s Hole’ in Chesham, the South of the Thames 5m at Morden and then the Kent Vets’ Champs at Dartford last week. Following the Kent League at Footscray next weekend, I will reach ‘peak cross country’ (or maximum mud) at the South of the Thames Champs in Croydon in two weeks’ time. Compensation for the Saturday off for Christmas will come from the Kent Champs and Penshurst Cross Country, both in the first weekend in January. It’s the winter runner’s version of ‘make hay whilst the sun shines’.
The Horspath course, as anyone who’s run it will tell you (ask Harriet), is ‘proper cross country’. The best comparison I can give you is that it’s Sparrow’s Den XXL, with deeper mud. After a winding route around the fields by the athletics track, a quarter mile splash across grassy farmland takes you to the first 150 foot ascent of the wooded hill in Shotover Country Park. A couple of hell-for-leather descents then leads to a mile of claggy bridleway, with periodic bursts of deep cloying mud. Repeat twice for
the men’s race.
The road runners have probably stopped reading, so it’s just us now, team. You may remember my report from last year which was a catalogue of cock-ups from start to finish. I finally got my M55 gold medal from that race a couple of months ago, but this year they still hadn’t introduced back category numbers – in spite of complaints,
including mine – so with all age cats lumped into one race, it was still a case of not knowing who you were up against. Having said that, I knew that Ben Reynolds had turned 55 in the meantime (World M55 cross country champion and 5000m silver medallist), and that Barry Royden would be thereabouts, even if in the M50 category below Ben and I.
As an aside for those of you who don’t know him, Barry (Baz) holds the record for Kent Cross Country Champs titles at ten wins. I remember asking our team captain at my first Kent League what it was all about, and he answered: ‘we all run round a ploughed field for half an hour and then Barry Royden wins’ – it held true for many years. His best performance was a 14th place in the European XC Champs, and if any road runners are still reading, he was also an elite pacer in the London Marathon. It’s always
a privilege to run against him, even if he does support the wrong team in North London.
I told my friends in the TAC team that I’d take the first lap easy. As usual, I was talking out of my backside, and found myself in about tenth place at the start of the first climb with Ben and Baz for company. It was a lungbuster, and although they moved ahead slightly, I caught and passed them on the shoe-sucking bridle path. Ben later said that my surge had given him mild concern, but in truth I was just putting in an effort to have a look at the race number of the guy just ahead to see whether he was an
M40 or M50! Thankfully he wasn’t one of us, so it was between Ben and I for the M55 title, although never really in doubt as he pulled strongly away across the splashing section and held the gap until the finish.
Baz stayed just ahead, and I was happy to cruise in behind him until I glanced back on the run-in and spotted a green M50 number behind. Suffice to say that although I held off the approaching group, my funnel technique was more Hadders huey than Peter Richardson jive.
This is the third year I’ve competed at these Champs as the lone Harrier. It would be great to have more of you there in 2020, and if you think the standard is beyond you, Clem didn’t (#XCbanter).
| 1 | Howard Bristow | Brighton and Hove AC | 31:47 | (1st M40) |
| 12 | Ben Reynolds | Thames Hare and Hounds | 33:19 | (1st M55) |
| 14 | Barry Royden | Medway and Maidstone AC | 33:39 | (2nd M50) |
| 15 | Andy Howey | Tunbridge Wells Harriers | 33:45 | (2nd M55) |
| 32 | Mark Cursons | Harrow AC | 35:11 | (3rd M55) |
| (172 finished) | ||||
L to R: Cursons, Howey, Reynolds PS. Since I didn’t write a report on the Herbert’s Hole 10k (17th November) organised by my cousin’s club Chiltern Harriers, here’s the result:
| 1 | Nick Hughes | Chiltern Harriers AC | 39:13 | 1st M50 |
| 4 | Andy Howey | Tunbridge Wells Harriers | 40:57 | 2nd M50 |
| (241 finished) | ||||
Testing muddy and hilly chalk downland course; fell on the first real corner and sliced my uninjured knee on a sharp flint. Otherwise fine.
Andy Howey