English National Cross Country Championships 2017 in Nottingham

The 2017 English National Cross Country Championships took place on Saturday February 25th at Wollaton Park in Nottingham. I took part in the senior men's race, one of nearly 1800 who made it round the 12k course.

Front of senior women's race on first lap

The course itself was decidely 'interesting', a spiralling series of four loops each slightly longer and different from the previous. There were a number of photogenic water and mud features, a longish sticky patch on last lap being particulary tough, but provided you negotiated these without falling or losing a shoe you always knew that you would soon be on a long runnable stretch. In that respect I found it a lot more pleasant than the Parliament Hill course where the mud can sometimes seem to stretch on forever (the English nationals will be returning there for 2018)

The U20 men hit the mud - I think the guy falling is Ellis Cross who nevertheless went on to win for the second year in a row (photo from English Cross Country Association gallery)

There were two main uphill sections on the course- one just before the descent to the finish line (which the senior men covered four times), and one climbing up to towards Wollaton Hall (a feature of three of the men's laps - the women's course was shorter).  Trudging up that hill put me in mind of the old folk song 'In Nottingham town, not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down'.



The tail end of the senior women's race enjoying the hill

Wollaton Hall features in The Dark Knight Rises as Wayne Manor, but there were no batman costumes in this race - it was no fun run!

'there's a storm brewing Mr Wayne'

It was my third National and I improved slightly on last year at Castle Donington, finishing 28 places ahead in a similar sized field - making me in the 79th rather than 83rd percentile with a mere 1395 runners in front of me!

 

Obligatory Nationals muddy legs shot

As for the club, Kent AC finished 11th in the senior men's competition and 12th in the senior women, a good result. Well done to Tonbridge AC and Aldershot, Farnham & District AC for winning the men's and women's champs respectively.

Kent AC changing trains at Tamworth station.

A big group of us travelled up from London, with 40 runners competing across the various races, most of whom stayed over for post-race celebrations in Nottingham. We ended up in Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (pictured below) built into the rocks by Nottingham Castle and purportedly the oldest pub in England. I'm sure it has seen worse than a few rounds of jager bombs with South London's finest. Hangovers were cleared with some early morning runs before heading home, I did 12 miles along the canal and the River Trent, passing near to Trent Bridge cricket ground and the City Ground of Nottm Forest.

End of the season

So that was the end of the cross country season, for me at least. The month before I ran in the South of England Cross Country Champs at Parliament Hill, finishing five minutes faster than at the Southerns last year on the same course - but it must be said conditions this year were a lot less wet and muddy than in 2016 (me below at end of first lap, didn't look quite so spy after nine miles).

Also last month I ran in the last fixture of the 2016-17 Surrey League, at Wimbledon Common on February 11th. I hotfooted there from Farthing Down near Coulsdon where South London Harriers hosted the final D1 women's race of the season on a snowy course along Happy Valley.

Surrey League women's race in the Coulsdon blizzard micro-climate, 11 February

Must admit I was a bit disappointed that there was no sign of snow at Wimbledon, though picturesque conditions aren't everything and Kent AC won the men's title for the 5th year in a row.

Start of Surrey League Division One Men's Race, Wimbledon Common, 11/2/2017
(photo by Pete Lighting)

Silence at Surrey League

I ran yesterday in the Surrey League Cross Country men's Division One at Farthing Downs outside of Coulsdon (home to South London Harriers). Before the race started there was a minute's silence to remember Lucy Pygott and Stacey Burrows, the two young runners killed this week while training with Aldershot Farnham and District AC. The driver of the car that killed them has been arrested.

Similar commemorations were held at races around the country yesterday, with many runners also wearing black ribbons. Although many of the runners would not have personally known 17-year-old Lucy and 16-year-old Stacey (left and right below), they were promising young runners who had already taken part in some of the big events of English athletics such as the national cross country championships at Castle Donington this year and the southern and national road relays.

The race started as soon as the silence finished, with 193 runners heading off on the two lap course. Kent AC (my club) won the race, regaining their place at the top of the league.  I was way towards the back in my first proper run since falling a couple of weeks ago, but did finish quicker than last time I ran that course a couple of years ago.

Surrey League XC finale at Wimbledon Common

'Once upon a time the Wombles went to live on - or rather under - Wimbledon Common in South-west London. There may be other Womble families in different parts of the world - in fact there are - but the Wombles like to keep to themselves, so once they've made a move and built themselves a comfortable waterproof burrow they tend to stay where they are...

off went Tomsk, running across the golf course with his arms tucked into his sides and his head well back, just like a four minute miler. He vanished over the skyline' 

(The Wombles by Elisabeth Beresford, 1968)

start of the men's senior race - winner Alex Yee already in front (photo from I Was or Am a Runner on facebook)

So that was this year's Surrey League cross country champs... The last race of the 2015-16 season, for the Division One men at least, took place on Wimbledon Common on Saturday. Kent AC (my club) won the match and, for the 4th year in a row, the League- headed on the day by Team GB Under-20 International Alex Yee, with club colleague John Gilbert  in 2nd place. Paskar Owor came 3rd, making him the leading runner across the season. He will be sadly missed from Division One next year as his club, Belgrave Harriers, were relegated to division two by a one point margin. Hercules Wimbledon were second place on the day and in the League overall.

The men's League includes 37 clubs across four divisions, and the women's League is also going from strength to strength. Their final match at Richmond Common had 382 runners from 38 clubs in the combined Division One/Division Two race. Steph McCall (South London Harriers) won by a 47 second margin in a field that also included the second fastest UK women's marathon runner of all time - Mara Yamauchi, running for Thames Hare and Hounds. Clapham Chasers won Division One, and of course I was delighted that Kent AC won Division Two and promotion to the top flight (full results and tables at Surrey League website)

The start of the junior race on Wimbledon Common

'Look, look, look,' shouted Bungo, running down a slope and turning to glance over his shoulder at his own prints. 'Look, look, look' called Alderney, and she put down her her head and went head over heels, leaving a funny bumpy track behind' (The Wombles by Elisabeth Beresford)

Wimbledon Common - one of the birth places of cross country club running - has a number of different courses, Saturday's taking place over the one associated with Hercules Wimbledon. These trails across the common are of  course invisible in between races, but a few markers and a handful of marshals are all it takes to demarcate the route.

Conditions on Saturday were cold with light rain, spikes were essential on some of the muddier sections on the lower slopes, but uncomfortable on the harder gravelly tracks nearer the top of the hill. There is a track across the Common called Gravelly Ride and that says it all. All of this is a function of the geology of what is officially designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest on account of its varied natural habitats: 'The high plateau in the east and north of the site has a capping of glacial gravels overlying Claygate Beds and London Clay which are exposed on the western slope of the Common. The acidic soils, and poor drainage of the plateau give rise to a mosaic of wet heath and unimproved acidic grassland. Semi-natural broadleaved woodland covers the deeper, clay soils of the western slope...Several streams rise at the boundary of the gravels and clays' (Natural England). So if your spikes were crunching on the gravel, blame the ice age.

There were three narrow stream crossings (one with bridge) and a tree trunk to leap, not to mention a post which one of the Kent runners (Owen Hind) crashed into at high speed.

Into the woods - yellow Hercules Wimbledon flags mark the course

'In spite of all their training on Wimbledon Common, he and Orinoco were not nearly as fit and tough as the members of the Clan, who could scamper up and down the mountains all night without getting tired' (The Wandering Wombles by Elisabeth Beresford, 1970)

I finished towards the back end and it was a bit lonely back there wiith many of my fellow slower runners either injured or absent. Still I was pleased to have shaken off some of my sluggish recent form, and in fact my time was two minutes faster than when I ran the same course in the South of Thames XC last season.

It's really only through running that I've become familiar with Wimbledon Common in the last couple of years- this year three of the four Surrey League Division One races for men were held there. Prior to that the Common for me was simply the legendary location of the Wombles stories, the furry recyclers of my childhood. Children's author Elisabeth Beresford conceived of the Wombles while walking on the Common.  No Wombles were spotted on Saturday, though they have popped up at the Wimbledon Half Marathon in the past.

Wimbledon Common Half Marathon 2014 (photo from Runners Forum)

See also:

Surrey League at Mitcham Common 2016

Surrey League final match 2015 - Richmond

Surrey League on Streatham Common 2015

Surrey League - Farthing Downs 2014

South of the Thames XC at Wimbledon 2014

Wimbledon Common, Blackheath and the origins of cross country

Surrey League Cross Country at Mitcham Common

The third match in this season's Surrey League men's cross country took place at Mitcham Common on 16 January 2016, with 196 runners from the nine Division One clubs. It was another victory for Kent AC (my club) - now top of the league having won it for the last three seasons-  with Hercules Wimbledon in 2nd and South London Harriers 3rd on the day. Kent AC's John Gilbert won the race, with a six second lead over Belgrave Harriers' Paskar Owor, followed by Chris Greenwood (Kent AC). 

The course was three laps (5.3 miles) of the eastern part of the Common - once upon a time the home of a number of football pitches, it was landscaped in the 1980s with the creation of some artificial hills which certainly make for a more interesting cross country course. None of the hills was particularly taxing, but they did have a cumulative effect. The ground still had the odd patch of ice before the race, but got wet and muddy in places as it thawed. As a guide to the Common puts it 'Around the foot of the hills, parcels of wetland have survived' and our feet certainly found at least one of those parcels.

Inspecting the Mitcham mountains and iced up Bidders Pond before the race

Changing facilities were at the Mill House Ecology Centre, where race hosts Clapham Chasers put on one of the finest post-race spread of cakes I have come across- Kent AC may have won the race, but the Chasers definitely won the cakes.

There's plenty of running history in this area. The following report describes an epic Boxing Day Hare and Hounds race in December 1868 organised by Surrey Athletic Club. The run, which started at the Greyhound in Streatham, covered around 16 miles including Tooting Common, Wandsworth Common, Wimbledon, Thornton Heath, 'round Mithcham Common to Beddington' and then back for  the 'plain but substantial fare placed before them by the landlord of the Greyhound Hotel'.

Surrey Cross Country League - last match of 2014-15 season in Richmond Park

Last weekend (Saturday 7 February) saw the last of the four races in this season's 2XU Surrey Men's Cross Country League Division One, hosted by Ranelagh Harriers in Richmond Park. Kent A.C went into the match as a more or less dead cert to win the championship, having won all three previous races. And indeed they went on to hold on to the trophy for the third year in a row, even though on the day they were pushed into second place by Thames Hare and Hounds.

The match was an uncanny rerun of the same fixture last year, also won by Thames H&H at Richmond Park, with Kent A.C. second but winning the League. And in both 2014 and 2015 the individual race was won by Paskar Owor of Belgrave Harriers with a 17 second gap between him and second finisher John Gilbert (Kent AC). The first five of 174 finishers last week were:

                                        

   1. Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers)  

   2. John Gilbert (Kent AC)  

   3. Chris Greenwood (Kent AC)   

   4. Kevin Quinn (South London Harriers)

5. Ryan Evans (South London Harriers)

(full 2015 results here) 

Paskar Owor (in hat) on his way to his third victory in Surrey League this season.

The course was over two laps, 5.65 miles in total, at the Petersham end of Richmond Park. After some of the muddy hills of previous fixtures, it was a bit of a breeze with a nice long descent to start with along a track known as the Queen's Ride. If anything I could have done without spikes as parts of the course were quite gravelly underfoot.

I ran for Kent, although I didn't come close to scoring in my three outings in the League it was great to be on the fringes of a winning team. As well as winning the senior men's League, the club's Alex Yee won all four races in the under-17s races and will be one to watch when he moves up to run in senior competitions next year. The women's team also had a good start in their first season in the League, with some strong performances.

(see Kent AC report here)

Surrey League trophy 

After tea and cake in the Ranelagh Harriers clubhouse in Petersham, we retired to the White Cross, a fine riverside pub in Richmond, to celebrate.

Kent AC celebrate League victory in the White Cross

1947:  French cross country runners get lost in Richmond Park

Ranelagh Harriers did a good job of organising the race last week with enough marshals to make sure there was no repeat of this incident from 1947: 'Three members of the Paris University team took a wrong turning in a six-mile cross country race with London University in Richmond Park'. They were found two hours later having run eleven and a half miles!

See previously:

Farthing Down Surrey League Cross Country, October 2014

South of the Thames Cross Country, Wimbledon Common, November 2014

Surrey League Streatham Common Cross Country, January 2015

Richmond Park 10k, August 2013 (plus some Richmond history)

Streatham Common Cross Country

The third of this season's 2XU Surrey Cross Country League Men's Division One fixtures took place on Streatham Common on 10 January, with 177 runners from the nine competing clubs completing the (approximately) five mile race.

photo by Rayond O'Donoghue

Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers) finished first, followed by Chris Greenwood (Kent Athletic Club) and Ralph Street (Ranelagh Harriers). But in the team results, based on scores of first ten finishers for each club, Kent AC were victorious ahead of South London Harriers and Herne Hill Harriers. Kent now have a strong lead in the League and have a good chance of winning the title for the third year in a row with one race remaining, at Richmond Park on 7th February.

I was one of 27 in the Kent vest, finishing well behind the scorers on a deceptively challenging course. I guess I associate Streatham Common with leisurely walks and summer festivals, but running three times around it in gradually deepening mud was another story. The course started with a charge down hill and around the big open space on the west side of the common, coming back up the edge of that then plunging down a slope again before climbing through the woods.  There was no real flat section.

Streatham Common cross country course (approximate, drawn by me from memory)

By the end of it I could have done with some of the healing waters of Streatham Spa's mineral springs that attracted people to the common in their thousands in the early 18th century. Sadly they are no more. The common itself was once used by local people as a place to gather wood and graze animals, and like many such places was the scene of an ongoing conflict with landowners who wanted to enclose the common land (see Down with the Fences: Battles For the Commons In South London) - in 1794 'six men dressed in black' demolished an enclosure fenced off by the Lord of the Manor. A century later the common was secured for public access when it was purchased for use as a public open space under the powers of the Metropolitan Commons Act 1878. 

There's a long history of running in the area, as shown by this newspaper cutting from October 1880:

South London Harriers annual Ten Mile Championship and Mr J Gibbs' Challenge Cup
from the Greyhound, Streatham Common, won by G.E. Liddiard, followed by H. Burrows
(the Greyhound pub, originally a coaching inn on London-Brighton road, is still there)

See previously:

Farthing Down Surrey League Cross Country, October 2014

South of the Thames Cross Country, Wimbledon Common, November 2014

Winter running 'traditions': of parkruns, paarlauf and muddy spikes

So Christmas and New Year is well and truly over and for the (barely) gainfully employed it's back to work and marathon training. For the second year running I started Christmas Day at Hilly Fields parkrun. I was slow with a sore ankle but was the first finishing reindeer, so I will take it. It was windy and I had to hold on tight to my antlers on the faster downhill sections of the course. I rarely get lapped at Hilly Fields but on this occasion I was just coming to the top of the hill that marks the end of the second lap when I heard thunderous steps coming up behind me- national Inter Counties Fell Running Champion and GB Mountain Runner Shaun Dixon on his way to break the course record followed closely by Paul Martelletti, who ran for GB in the 100 km World Championships in Doha in August 2014.

Christmas fairy at Hilly Fields parkrun

Is Christmas parkrun becoming a new running 'tradition' over the festive period? Well at Hilly Fields there were 121 runners this Christmas compared with 81 the year before and 20 in 2012. Similarly at Dulwich parkun the numbers have risen from 56 in 2012 and 99 in 2013 to 130 in 2014.  

Then there's New Year's Day, the only day in the year in which you can record two parkruns in one day (for the rest of the year all parkruns everywhere in England start at the same time, 9:00 am). I ran at Peckham Rye at 9:00 am, and then Hilly Fields at 10:00 am, while others went from Peckham to Dulwich Park or Southwark Park. Hilly Fields parkrun ended on a sombre note with a runner collapsing at the finish line and being taken to hospital in an ambulance apparently very seriously ill, but glad to say he seems to be recovering.

As with Christmas Day, there's been a steady growth in runners, at least judging by those South London parkruns that took place on New Years Day. 

Another Christmas tradition amongst many athletics clubs is a paarlauf race. Paarlauf is German for 'pair running' but it can be run with larger teams. Essentially it's a relay race, with the difference being that it is entirely up to each team to decide how it covers the distance - there's no fixed leg. At Kent Athletic Club the pre-Christmas paarlauf at Ladywell track consisted of 13 teams of 3 running 16 laps (6400m) between them. My team ran in consecutive 200m sprints, but as we came last that might not have been the best tactic. Others were taking elaborate short cuts across the middle of the track to enable shorter legs or even having the stronger runners run longer distances. All good fun, though running 11 200m sprints with minimal recovery certainly took it out of me.

The final festive tradition must be the first cross country races of January, where many seasonal pristine presents of nice new running shoes are christened in the mud. Saw some lovely looking spikes before the start of the Surrey League at Streatham Common but they all looked much the same colour afterwards.

Oh yes they used to look like this...

Forward to Farthing Downs: start of the Surrey Cross-Country League

As discussed here before, cross-country is where it all began as far as modern organised athletics is concerned, with many of today's running clubs starting out in the 19th century to chase across fields in 'hare and hounds' races.

With the conditions now beginning to get suitably cold and wet, the English cross-country season got underway again last week - and I ran my first organised cross country race since leaving school.  Over the summer I joined my local Kent Athletic Club (based in Lewisham), and I was one of 27 wearing the blue vest of Kent - and  one of 176 runners in total -  in the opening men's match of the 2014-15 2XU Surrey Cross-Country League at Farthing Downs in Coulsdon.

Entrance to the South London Harriers HQ in Brighton Road, Coulsdon

 The race was hosted by South London Harriers, who have been based in the area and running over Farthing Downs since at least 1913 (their origins go back further to a pub in Peckham Rye in 1871, but that's another story). The Surrey Cross-Country League is slightly less venerable, but is still older than me, having started in 1962. The top flight of the event, Division One,  was dominated by two teams in the ten years between 2001 and 2011, with Herne Hill Harriers winning six times and Thames Hare and Hounds winning four times. But in the last two years, it has been won by Kent AC following a rapid progression from the 4th to 1st division after the club joined the league in 2007-8.

The animals of Farthing Downs

Coulsdon is within the London Borough of Croydon, but the area is as proper countryside as you can find within the M25. Yes cows had to be moved out of the way before the race could start. When you see the word 'Downs' you know it really means 'Ups' and the 5.4 mile course (over two laps) started with a long uphill grassland stretch before descending through woodland on a path with enough stones and tree roots to stop the mind from wandering.

The route

The race was won by Jon Pepper, running for Ranelagh Harriers, followed by Kent AC's John Gilbert and Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers).  The team competition was won by Kent though, who took five of the top 13 positions. Team points are calculated on the basis of the top ten finishers for each club - the winner gets 1 point, 2nd place two points etc. with the team with the lowest number of points across its first ten finishers being the winner overall. Kent are definitely now the team everyone wants to beat, so plenty to run for in the remaining three matches at Lloyd Park, Streatham Common and Richmond Park (full results here)

John Gilbert (Kent AC) and Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers, and a former Olympic athlete for Uganda)
- photo from Surrey Cross-Country League facebook page

Going straight into a highly competitive Division One match was daunting for me, and I can't say I contributed to the outcome. But I did achieve my modest race goals of 1. not falling over; 2. not getting lapped; 3. not walking; and 4. not coming last. I strongly recommend you try and run in a cross-country race over autumn/winter if you get the chance, I certainly intend to do some more.

The match was preceded by the Young Athletes race (under-17s), won by Kent's Alex Yee. In fact it's been a good couple of weeks for Kent AC runners, the next day the club's Amy Clements won the women's race in the Royal Parks Half Marathon, while the weekend before Cath Stibbs won the women's race at the Chester Marathon. Kent's women's team also made their debut in the Surrey Cross-Country League  'Senior Ladies' Division 2.

After the race runners retired to the South London Harriers clubhouse bar, a place steeped in running history and lore with  vintage photos, medals and indeed its very own blue plaque outside.

Plaque outside the SLH HQ commemorating Gordon Pirie (1931-1991).
5000m silver medallist at 1956 Melbourne Olympics

Jonny Muir has also written about this race:

'this is no normal race. This is among the best racing amateur athletics can offer. I once ran a race called Hellrunner on an army camp in Hampshire. It is part of a breed of modern races that are pitched as masochistic and ‘tough’. The ground was frozen. The hills were modest. We waded through the Bog of Doom, a contrived trench of neck-deep water. It was cold, but provides the runner with a rest – a convenient break from what you came here to do. I finish fifth. They give you what is called a ‘survivor’s medal’ if you get round. Hellrunner? I have run in hell. It’s a place near Bourton-on-the-Water. It is Richmond Park when you are in 76th place a week after winning a marathon. It is the second lap of Farthing Downs'.

See also on South London club running:

Assembly League Finale in Beckenham (Sept 2014)