On Saturday, twelve LBAC runners headed off to Alton Towers for the final cross-country of the standard season. This was the National championships, which are the biggest open-entry races in the country and offer a great experience just to join a huge range of like-minded runners from all over the country.

With eleven of the twelve on the by 8am in the minibus, we received a message saying that the course was a "quagmire"! Having experienced Wing and the worst that Parliament Hills had to offer over the years we were not concerned……..until we arrived! With the five U15 boys going off in the second race of the day at 11.25 there was little time to worry about the conditions as we traipsed around the waterlogged course collecting numbers, erecting tents and trying to persuade ourselves this was a good idea.

The five lads have all done at least seven of the eight club cross-country races this season and have shown a huge commitment to the club and representing us superbly all over the country. In the race itself Brian Foulger acheived the highest position of any club member on the day by coming home 77^th in the race out of over 300 finishers. Behind Brian, all the other lads are a year young and so will still be U15 next year. Jordan Clay (206^th) just missed the top 200 while Joe McGarry chased him home as the third team scorer. As has been the case all season, Charlie Mead and Jake Irvine had a great battle up and down the hills, with Charlie coming out on top on this occasion finishing 299^th, with Jake just behind in 303^rd. As a team, they were sandwiched in between the huge clubs of Thames Valley Harriers and Derby AC.

Billy Mead was next man out, in the U17 boys race. As ever, this was an extremely high quality field and with Billy a year young he was really just hoping for a solid run on this course that just offered steep hills and ankle deep mud for 3 miles! After a steady start where he was near the back, Billy gradually started working through the other runners at the end of the first lap and as he came up the huge final hill before the finish he had got into the top 150. A great final half mile saw him come home 117^th out of 270 finishers to complete a tremendous run.

The Nationals try to change order of races around to get away from the usual youngest first situation and so Lloyd Millikin in the U13's had a bit of a wait before his start. As the day had progressed the slippery nature of the course conditions had resulted in a number of injuries and the St Johns Ambulance were struggling to keep up. Races were being delayed and altered to remove certain sections so the constant time changes meant that Lloyd eventually ended up running through the start line a small distance behind the other runners. As it turned out, it gave him the encouragement of overtaking other people all the way as he came home in 133rd out of 327 finishers.

The senior ladies race was one of those that suffered from changes and so the 8K was reduced to 6K and they were stopped from using the biggest hill on the course. This delighted our only runner, Amy, who was not overly passionate about the run after waiting for four hours, but she started and finished all the same. There were over 550 women in the race and Amy ran consistently around the course to finish 311^th and close her cross-country season with great relief.

Our final member was Fred Watt who had an expensive journey up the motorway with a fuel "incident" on route. However, he made it in the end to join Nick Clay, Pete Mackrell and Andy Inchley for the senior men's race. The race was reduced from 12K to 10K due to a delayed start, but they still had to complete the very tough hill twice. The start of the race must have been a great sight, with 1300 men storming off through the mud of Staffordshire before the unrelenting ankle deep mess ground them all down. Andy Inchley had one of his best runs of the season by coming home in 267^th just 20 seconds (but 22 places) behind Simon Coombes. Pete Mackrell completed his full eight race season with a great run, to finish exactly one third of the way down the quality field in 435^th. Nick was next back in 735^th before Fred was LBAC's final finisher of the day in  1061^st! Unfortunately we didn't have a full team of six, but it is one of those we will remember for a long time.