Two events to report on this time.
The National – Sat 25th Feb.
We’ll start with one of the highlights of the cross country season – The National Cross Country Championships which follow on, in our case, from the North Eastern and Northern Championships.
After the original venue at Harewood House in West Yorkshire became surprisingly unavailable the ECCA were fortunate to rearrange the event at Bolesworth Castle in west Cheshire.
The course was largely flat grassland and was quite pleasurable to run on – quite novel for a cross country.
It was a great day for the competitors – nice and fast racing against the best of clubs from across the whole of England.
Elswick had a number of entrants who enjoyed their day:
Juniors
Dominic Kelso had his inaugural run at The National in the under 13 Boys category finishing the 3k lap in 12:32 – 205th.
He felt he could have done better, having been boxed in at the start, and there not being many of the usual hills where he always excels. However, the slow start meant that he was passing lots of other runners and with the experience he’s gained Dominic is confident of a great result next year.
Senior Women
Next to run from the club was Jude Nutt in the Senior Women’s race. Sensibly, she’d arrived in plenty of time, unlike a good many of the female entrants who were stuck in the 1 hour long tailback trying to get into the venue.
As alway, Jude impressed on the 8km (plus a bit) course, coming in 217th out of 773. Her time was a very respectable 37:15.
The main field of Senior Women were well away by a good few hundred metres as stragglers got started determined not to miss this spectacular annual event. They may not be in with a chance to win – but it’s just doing it that counts here.
Senior Men
The last race of the day was the 3pm 12k Senior Men.
Not quite a full team, Rob Lambert and Simon Allen donned the famous Elswick vest determined to do the west of Newcastle proud – or at least do their best on the day.
Unusually, it was a 6km lap done twice for this one and Simon commented that the first time around seemed never-ending. But oddly, the second seemed to go quite quickly.
Simon was first home in 53:15, 1052nd of 1473, and Rob finished 1266th in a time of 58:13
Both agreed that it was a good venue, but Rob’s 60 minutes in the traffic queue meant that he only had an hour to prepare.
The High Cup Nick Fell Race – Sat 25th Feb.
This is an interesting race in which two of our members pitted themselves against 1715 feet of ascent over 9.2 miles in the Pennines.
The race starts from Dufton Village Hall in Cumbria, not far from Penrith, and then wends its way through fields before following the course of the High Cup Beck up to the “nick” at the head of this U shaped valley at the 5 miles mark.
From there it’s a lope downhill on tired legs back to the start following a pleasing loop with superb views of the Eden valley.
The intrepid pair on this occasion were Jonny Lowes who was 308th overall in a total time of 1:53:59. And in a very impressive time of 1:47:12 was Mike Steven who finished 273rd from a total field of 367
Well done guys, that looks like a toughie – full results here.
