Chiltern Cross Country League – Race 5 – Campbell Park

by Tom Kimber

The call for a large final turnout worked a treat. A total of 61 LBAC runners headed to the wintry conditions of Campbell Park in Milton Keynes for the final event in the Chiltern League cross country season. Prior to the event, we were in 6^th place overall, but with the knowledge that a strong team performance would provide possibility of an even higher finish.

From a personal perspective I was looking forward to the Campbell Park event, as I happen to work a stones throw from the park and spend many a lunch hour enjoying its scenery. However I’m not convinced that any course knowledge particularly helped. I don’t know what others thought, but in my view it was one of those lumpy courses where you were running either uphill or downhill, with very little flat in between, which meant it was hard to run in a relaxed manner. Add in one or two very boggy spots, a tight ‘gate turn’, and a near vertical downhill section, and it is clear to see why this is viewed as a challenging course. read more

Southerns Cross Country Championship

28th January 2017

by Chris Large

After coming back from Lanzarote I was full of the joys of running and ready to get myself some races in the diary. Cross Countries seemed an obvious solution and encouraged by Andy Inchley I booked myself into the ‘Southerns’ down at Parliament Hill in London. It turned out to be in the words of Pepperami “A bit of an animal”.

The kind Amy Farnfield drove me and Jo Sharples to north-west London. It would have helped if I’d known the distance beforehand, funny thing was that I just assumed that it would be a normal cross-country distance i.e. the 9km or 10km. It was only whilst going down in the car that Amy and Jo told me that the men’s race is 14km. I knew at that point it would be a tough day. read more