Saturday saw the infamous running of the Southern Counties Cross-Country Championships at Parliament Hill Fields in Hampstead Heath. It is infamous for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is the longest championship cross-country on the calendar, with women covering five miles and the men nearly nine! Secondly, it is usually the muddiest race of the year!

This year however, whilst the route and distance were unchanged the underfoot conditions were the best seen by your correspondent (although there are rumours that it was similar in a recent year not attended!). It was very confusing not to have to wade through ankle deep mud for an hour, up and down the hills of Highgate. Please do not misunderstand. This was not a dry course, and for the uninitiated Southern Champs runner it was hard going, but most know what it can be like!

Anyway, there was a reasonable turn-out on the day despite a whole flurry of late withdrawls from the ill, injured and forgetful senior members. It is worth pointing out that the club pays £6 for each entry whether or not it is taken up and so when you multiply that by twenty…..! Clearly, illness and injury are one thing but please remember to put these races in your diary when you agree to run them. Lecture over, sorry!

These days we have a group of young lads that have become really committed to competing for the club over the cross-country season with eight of them doing practically all the league and championship races. Regularly competing on cold wintery afternoons all over home counties requires a fair bit of dedication and they should all be commended for it. This is not to mention the tireless efforts put in by their parents and of course, Nick and Mandy Clay to get them there and enjoying the experience.

For once, it wasn't the youngest first on the day and so the the U13's got to watch a couple of other races first. The U15 boys once again turned up in excellent numbers, with all five regulars making the trip to London and ploughing their way around the course. Brian Foulger was first man home in 93rd, ahead of Jordan Clay (165) and Joe McGarry returning to some great form in 177^th. Behind them, Charlie Mead (226) and Jake Irvine (241) gave great team support over the 4.5K course. As a result the team finished 45th out of 93, which is an excellent effort, particularly as only Brian will move into the next age group next year.

Third out on the course (after the girls) were Lloyd Millikin and Patrick Clay in the U13 boys over a 3K course. Now, here was a lesson learned. If you don't wear your timing chip when provided with one, you don't get a time or position! Patrick, won't be doing that again I'm sure! However, Lloyd ran a very strong race to finish 73^rd out of 224 runners in an incredibly competitive race with very small margins. Thirty seconds faster would have gained him 30 places, but thirty second slower and he'd have lost fifty.

I always say that the U17 boys is a very high quality race. The reason for this is that, despite everyone's best efforts, the reality of all sports is that there is a big drop-off in numbers at the age of 15-16 and correspondingly the majority of those that continue to do their sport are of a pretty high standard. This race is an extreme example of that as it is particularly challenging and Billy Mead was again the club's only runner and ran extremely strongly to finish the 6K course in 23:31 and 90^th place, a year young in the age group.

For the first time in a very long time (maybe ever) our senior ladies completed a scoring team and came 43^rd out of 62, which is pretty good on a first effort. Leading the ladies home was Gail Duckworth in 110^th out of nearly 400 finishers. Despite being at death's door, Amy Inchley ran extremely strongly to finish the hilly and muddy 8K course in 39:13 and 194^th place. Jane Sauer (280) continued her great commitment to the cross-country season with her first ever Southern Champs in her shiny new pink spikes, whilst Amelia Wallace chose the hardest event of the season make her debut. Without any spikes to offer grip on the treacherous surface Amelia came a cropper early on the first lap, but picked herself up and did a fantastic job completing the LBAC ladies team, before getting her priorities right with a trip to the pub.

The senior men's race is iconic. Nearly 1000 men start by charging up Parliament hill at the Southern end of Hampstead Heath before completing three, three mile loops of boggy undulating grassland. This year, nine brave souls took on the freezing conditions and lived to tell the tale. After being caught out at the start (along with 200 others) Andy Inchley managed to catch Ben Corfield on lap two and gained some revenge for the county race three weeks earlier by leading the team home in 59:05 and 207^th place out of the 885 finishers. Just over a minute behind was Ben (256) and then Stuart Blofeld who also was caught out at the start came in a further two minutes back with a storming finish in 321^st. Pete Mackrell (335) who has run all of the cross-country's this season was thirty seconds behind Stuart before club captain Tom May finished 437^th after 65 minutes.

In the senior men's race they have two team competitions, with a team of six and twelve. Completing our team of six was Mike Bryant (643), who had a good battle with both Ian Roberts (683) and Fred Watt (672) before pulling away on the last lap. LBAC's final finisher on the day was our resident Brazilian, Rod Lopez (765) who felt a million miles away from Sao Paolo on a freezing January day in London! As a team the men were 45th out of 93, so a top half finish is pretty good, and next year we'll try to get in the team of 12 reckonings………