There are a few iconic cross-country events in England. At Alton Towers last year there was more mud than most people will see in a lifetime, the start of the races at Parliament Hills is a fantastic sight and the national in general is just great to say you've done it. However, the Southern Champs is another dimemsion for those who want to get the full cross-country experience. It is always the longest race on the calender, with the men covering 15K and the women over 8K.

This year's event was held in the shadow of the new Amex Football stadium down in Brighton and more specifically on the hills of Stanmer Park. As ever the races all started at the bottom of a hill and went up………. to varying degrees.

Following a very early start in the morning, the U15's boys had to be ready for an 11.00am start but all five of them made it there in plenty of time and it was certainly worth their while. Jordan Clay had a pretty strong run to lead the team home in 101^st place while Lloyd Milliken, Tom Boozer, Joe McGarry and Charlie Mead had a battle all the way around the undulating course to finish within 24 seconds of each other and covering 18 places.

Lloyd is the youngest of the four, but thrives on the competition between them and just managed to get away from Tom over the last few hundred metres. It shows a great team spirit for all the U15's to continually put in such an effort to run in these big races and they ended up with a 25^th place team finish, just behind Harrow and Windsor and ahead of Brighton.

The U13's were next onto the start line with another full team of four. In their first years of racing, the U13's are following the footsteps of their older club team mates and there were particularly outstsanding runs from Sam Nicholas and Owen Drabwell. The hills of Brighton clearly suited Sam as he charged around the course to finish the race in just over 11 minutes and 58^th place. Just 18 seconds, but 24 places back was Owen who can also consider himself to have had a cracking run.

The team was excellently made up by the ever improving Henry Mead and Patrick Clay in 168^th and 174^th respectively. This combined team effort gave the lads 20th place overall, ahead of the likes of Highgate and Thames Valley.

The U17 men saw Billy & Brian once again flying the flag for Leighton and after the fast flat of Slough, this course was much more to their liking. As ever, the U17 race was a very high standard but the two Leighton lads worked their way through the field, thriving on the hills with both having probably their best runs of the season. Billy came home in 85^th place, with Brian in 93^rd.

In the 8K ladies race there were three starters who had made the trip down to Brighton. Gail had decided to slack off just because she had some little world championships to run in instead, which left Amy, Jane & Fi to take on the hills. The first short lap around the bottom field saw a bit of disaster for Fi as her long standing knee injury flared up badly and she had to pull out very early in the race.

Amy and Jane had both started strongly and as they settled in to the start of the first large lap, were starting to pick off places. Between the two of them was Julie Dalzell of Milton Keynes who joined us on the club trip to Lanzarote in November, whom Amy has never managed to beat before. As with most of the races, they had to take on a very large hill half way around the lap and Jane in particular ran very strongly to the top before making the most of the long fast descent.

On the second lap, Julie had Amy in her sights and caught her on the big hill, but generously encouraged her all the way up. Once at the top Amy then picked up her pace again and managed to stretch out towards the finish. Both girls had struggled somewhat with their spikes as the course was mixture of grass and stony tracks that bruised the feet somewhat, but it didn't stop them finishing extremely strongly.

In last year's race Amy and Jane were 194^th and 290^th respectively in the race at Parliament Hills. This year the two of them were 154^th and 178^th which shows a huge improvement by both of them after their hugely successful 2011. Great work ladies.

The Senior men's race at the Southern champs is something of an iconic event with it being the longest cross-country on the calendar at fifteen kilometres. It was three laps, including two very long hills that really took their toll on almost all but the leading runners.

As the 800 senior men rounded the first corner in a massive group approximately fifteen wide, one guy was heard to shout; "Oh damn, is that a stile in front?". Having started off quickly Ben Corfield was continuing his excellent season in a Leighton vest and headed into the first lap looking comfortable. His strong first lap continued pretty well, but Simon (running for Herne Hill) had him in his sights all the way and used him as a target. On lap three he went past and Ben had no answer but they both had great results to finish in 98^th and 108^th respectively.

The suggestion of a few beers after the run had brought a decent little team down to Brighton and so there were six other chaps chasing Ben around the very fast but hilly course. Andy had a constant race with Stuart Still of Luton to come home in just under an hour in 205^th place out of the 745 finishers. Behind him Pete Mackrell and Tom May had a battle with Pete's training partner Gary Blaber of MK, with Pete coming home in 310^th with Tom in 322^nd.

The final three Leighton runners all showed some tremendous finishing speed to pick off places over the last few hundred metres as Joe Hurley came home in 464^th with Gary Stratford three minutes behind in 551^st. The final finisher was Dan Webb in his first ever Southern Champs, who completed the course in 77 minutes and 627^th place. These efforts by the team saw them finish 39^th out of 79 six-man teams. If you remove B and C teams from the overall list, this equates to 30^th out of 56 and a fantastic effort for our little club.