NORTHERN XC CHAMPIONSHIPS
Saturday 27 January 2007 at Heaton Park (south side)
The organisers devised an excellent route for this year’s event, with the ladies running 2+ laps and the men 3+ laps of an interesting course with lots of variety, some deep mud, several up hills and exhilarating down hills, and even some flat sections. Instead of using the northern part of the park that we are used to seeing in the Manchester XC league, we returned to the south side where the northerns were often staged in the 1990s. Although the temperature was a quite high 8°C, a stiff breeze made it seem much cooler. A possible bonus for the runners was that the courses were shorter than advertised – I put the men’s race at only 11km. As a Club, we were under-represented this year, with only Sally G. in the Ladies’ race and just four of us in the Men’s race.
My race was very competitive, as I remained in close contact with runners all the way round. Starting near the back, I got past 16 by Lap1 (18:40) as they tried to avoid the mud and I was ahead of 19 by Lap 2 (38:00). Although many elite athletes lapped me on Lap 2, I managed to keep ahead of our own fast men, although Malcolm must have got very close, judging by his finishing time. I was just ahead of two more youngsters towards the end of Lap3 (57:30), but they got me on the run in as I held off another fast finisher. Five of us finished only 12 seconds apart! Overall, this was probably my best cross-country race for three years, and our other runners also produced very good times.
SENIOR LADIES 8(?)km
111 Sally Gilliver 31:37
274 finishers
SENIOR MEN 12(?)km
94 Malcolm Fowler 38:37
141 Rob Downs 39:58
256 Ray Eagle 42:53
632 Trevor Faulkner 58:16
651 finishers
Trevor