National Cross Country

Well, we were lucky with the weather.  After all the crazy conditions we've had recently, I was very pleasantly surprised to find Parliament Hill Fields bathed in warm sunshine.  I can't remember the last time I could stand at the start of a race in shorts and vest and feel warm.

As expected, the course was tough: the usual hills and mud.  It was actually less wet than it has been in previous years, so the mud was stickier, which made it even harder to get through.  But unlike the 15k course for the Southerns, this was only (!) 12k, so we only did 2 large laps instead of 3 medium ones.

Oddly, I had more family than club members running (well, Lindsay's family, really).  Lindsay, her mother, brother, sister and brother-in-law were all racing, and the only remaining Squirrels were Tash and Chris Priestley.  Although Pete, Karen and Ollie were there to shout encouragement (I think that's what they were doing!) from the sidelines.

So, just like the Southerns, I didn't really have much way of telling if I was doing well or not.  The only person I knew well enough to compare myself against was the aforementioned brother-in-law, and he smoothly overtook me after about 5k and proceeded to disappear off into the distance.  And my energy levels started to fall, and I didn't enjoy the second lap very much at all.  

Which made my thoughts start to take a negative turn.  Why was I doing this?  If I'd just stayed at home, it would have made absolutely no difference to the results.  We couldn't put a team together for either the men's or ladies' races, for a national event only an hour from home.  Why is our club getting so pathetic about cross country races?  Did nobody think they could manage it?  I know the name of the club is 'road runners', but that's not all we do.  And I'm bored of the marathon-training excuses too: I've managed to work cross-country events into a marathon schedule before, and a bit of off-road running on softer ground is better for you than endlessly pounding around roads.

Humph.

Anyway, it appears I came 524th - coincidentally, the same position as Lindsay did.  This wasn't so bad, since there were about 1500 people running, which was part of what makes the event such an experience in the first place.

Another cross country next week, then...