There could scarcely have been a bigger contrast. The national championships of 2010 took place in an absolute quagmire on the edge of Alton Towers with just a few members making the trip. This year, a glorious day in North London saw the Hampstead Heath course in the driest condition for many years as record numbers turned up in the February sunshine.

First up on the day were our U15 boys who once again had five lads in the field. Being the national championships, most of the top runners in each age group try to make the trip to these events and on there were 366 boys taking part. Our team put in another strong performance to finish as the 33^rd team on the day as they were led home by Jordan Clay in 120^th. The battle of the day took place between Lloyd Milliken and Tom Boozer as they challenged each other all the way around their 18 minutes of running, with the two of them being awarded the same time, but Lloyd just sneaking ahead in 243^rd. Less than twenty seconds behind Tom & Lloyd was Charlie Mead in 268^th with Joe McGarry a few seconds further back in 287^th.

In her first ever major championship, Becca Mead was next on the course in the U13 girls. The one lap 3K course was completed by Becca in just over 18 minutes as she came home in 358^th position. Immediately afterwards, Billy Mead took on the 6K of the extremely high quality U17 men's race and made it around all of the hills on the two lap course in 149^th place out of the 336 finishers. This represented a great run for Billy who has been getting stronger and stronger throughout the season.

The final junior runners of the day were the U13 boys represented by Patrick Clay, Henry Mead and Sam Nicholas. Sam Nicholas once again led the boys to the finish line by finishing in 103^rd with Henry completing his cross-country season in 302^nd, just ahead of Patrick in 326^th. It should be pointed out that Jordan, Joe, Charlie & Henry have all competed in all five of the Chiltern Leagues and three championship races this season which is a great commitment and effort on their part.

There were three senior ladies taking on the infamous Parliament Hill fields in the sunshine with Jane Sauer completing the full set of all eight cross-country races for the season and being backed up by Jo Breslin and Amy Inchley over the 8K course. The weather had brought out an extra 200 ladies to the usual 450 and so the race was correspondingly competitive. Jo was first back and completed the course in 35.33 in 221^st place.

Less than two minutes behind Jo, Jane had a storming run for her last of the season to finish in the top half in 317^th place. Amy was not really feeling the love for the race, but did manage to get home in 38.14 and 347^th place. Unfortunately, the ladies were one short of a team, but this represented 200% more than last year so maybe in 2012!

In the senior men's race Ben Corfield was the final club member going for the complete set of eight races this season as he was aiming to lead the team home as we managed to get seven men down to Hampstead for the run. The average turn-out in this race has been around 1250 for the last few years, but whatever the reason there were nearly 1700 men taking on the hilly 12K course. This caught the organisers a little bit off-guard as there was something of a bottleneck at the top of the first hill, but once this was taken care of, there was just the hills to cause the problems!

Ben finished off his fine season by coming home in 42 minutes and an excellent 255^th place. Andy Inchley didn't have his finest performance, but came home in 545^th position, just over a minute ahead Pete Mackrell who had a royal battle with a training partner from MK in finishing 667^th. Chris Norman continued his comeback to form with a really strong finish in 825^th and still the top half.

Fifth for the team of six was Gary Stratford in 1024^th as his form continues to improve ahead of the London marathon. In his first major championship race, Chris Williams thoroughly enjoyed the experience to close out the team of six in 1180^th with 500 people still behind him. Chris Dimmock was the final finisher on the day in 1324^th place and 56 minutes. The result of this fine effort by the men's team was very good all-in-all. There were 125 men's teams completed on the day which was 30 more than last year and we managed a very healthy 64^th place.