CROSS IS BOSS! (I know that normally refers to Cyclocross - but yeah... whatever!)...

It's Cross-country season again - hooray!

As a "relatively" new runner I'm still finding my feet - but last year, just after joining "THE MIGHTY" tm Leighton Fun Runners I got swept up in the excitement and ran a couple of cross-country races. I didn't know what to expect, but was frankly astonished at the level of competition - the fastest runners in our club were only just scraping into the top 50, and I was barely scraping into the top 200.

But that was last year - and I've done a fair bit of training since then (and bought some spikes as I am a terrible trainer tart!). 

The first race of this season (we're in the Three Counties League which seems to cover an absolutely huge number of clubs) was Dunstable. I ran this last year and properly enjoyed it - the course was amazing - rolling countryside, a HUUUGE hill (I walked a bit last year - sorry!), breathtaking views over the Dunstable Downs - and loads of burnt out cars for comedy relief!

But we'd had notice this year that the course was to be run in reverse - which sounded great as it meant that we'd get the big hill out of the way right at the start.

Ha! What I hadn't realised last year, is that we'd spent the first two thirds of the race steadily going downhill - instead I'd just thought that I must just have been really, really strong - yeaaah, that must have been it. Which meant in this direction you run up a short hill, then drop down steeply for an entire mile, then just grind out an endless hill - this is not a race for a negative split!


Look at my happy little face!

 
No negative splits happening here then!

As cross country is all about placings - time doesn't matter at all - a long downhill is the perfect opportunity to go for it. I've been told descending is all about body position - so I took the advice, leaned forward and opened up - and IT WORKED! Within a few seconds I was barreling past dozens of runners - it was soooo satisfying! So satisfying in fact that I got massively carried away with - "I'll have you, and you, and you, and you" then glancing at my watch to find that I was running at about 5:30 pace (this is NOT a natural pace for me), and I was absolutely going to suffer for it later...

By about mile 3 (it's 5 and a bit miles long) I could see my friend Matt up ahead - this was a BIG surprise as Matt is a considerably classier runner than me, and I thought if I can just hang on to the people around me and keep Matt in sight I could get a really good (for me) placing...

This matters, as last year we didn't field a full team for the first race of the season and so were immediately in last place, whereas this year there were LOADS of us there, maybe 18 men (we had 6 last year). 

In cross country you add the placings of your first 8 runners to get your team score. So theoretically your team could score 38 if you've come 1st to 8th. Or you could score 1404 as we did in the first race last year - which is quite a bit more then 38! 

Also, if I could sneak into the first 8 for our club then I would make up part of the team score - which I really wanted, but this absolutely wasn't a given, what with the strength in depth we've got this year.

But the hills kept on keeping on. This, however is not necessarily a bad thing for me, as my horrible emaciated frame is really rather suited to a long grindy climb - I have very little natural explosive power or strength, but I only weigh 62Kg (that's 9 stone 10 for the old-school out there) so I've got gravity on my side. I may not have the strength, speed or technique of a Kenyan, but by god, I've got the scrawny legs!

So bit by bit, I started to overtake people and actually caught up with Matt, then overtook our other friend Andy who, although miles faster than me, was suffering with tight calves.

So far so good - right until the last half-mile which is flat - which doesn't really suit me as I do not have a finishing burst of speed of any form, so two or three of the runners I'd already overtaken on the hills came past me, and there was nothing I could do - just grit my teeth and hang on!

As you finish you walk through the funnel and are given a numbered token - ParkRun stylee - which gives you your position and mine said...


99!!!


99! As in less than a hundred! An actual hundred... A position I thought I'd never see - and I was the sixth man in - A SCORING PLACE TOO! SQUEE! Andy came in straight after me so we had 7 men in the top 100 - with Eddie from our club coming in soon afterwards for our best league position for years.

For me, the joy of cross country is the atmosphere - everyone gets cheered in, first or last - AND at the end there is an obligatory cup of tea, a cob (or a roll for the heathens out there) and a piece of cake - heaven!

The only downside is that on the course there were only THREE burnt out cars - come on Dunstable! You can do better than that next year ;-)


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