Hants Cross Country Fixture 1 - Report

Wow, we fielded two full teams. Three ladies (Alana Spiers, Christina Kluth and Mel Ford) and five men (Keith Spiers, Eddie Pottrill, Rob Dempster, Maurice Richardson and debut-making Dave Kinloch).

Alana cut it fine, with a sprinted warm-up the start line to join the 142 other ladies who set off on their two laps of the Popham fields and wood. All three ladies had done parkruns in the morning so were either in good shape or (Christina?) hanging on after one lap and wondering why they had. The ladies run about 6km in these fixtures. Not too far maybe, and the ground conditions were favourable at Popham this time, but it’s easy to get carried away. All the ladies did well to manage their pace and achieved finishing positions of Alana, 53, Christina, 88, and Mel, 110. Their overall team score of 251 placed them 13th overall of the 21 clubs who fielded complete teams.

An hour later the men were off. One short lap, three full laps and about 10km for them.

The spectators and probably the rest of the runners could scarcely believe their eyes when Abdinasir Mohamoud Elmi from Bournemouth (a Somali international!) had a lead of about 100m after 300m, destroying the opposition and making it a race within a race for the minor places. Far more sensibly none of the Hedgie men had run in the morning. Those long drags up the Popham hills are draining.

All settled into economic and sustainable rhythms, managing their efforts to all finish strongly –

Eddie so strongly that he took out two others in the finish funnel! Apologies were made and accepted and no harm was done. Great commitment though, Eddie! Not content with finishing his own race, Maurice returned to the course to pace Dave up the penultimate hill and past a disbelieving runner from Totton. Maurice – what a teammate! All finished safely and as follows:

Rob,78, Eddie, 125, Maurice, 160, Keith, 182, and Dave, 221. With the first three constituting the men’s team that gave us an overall score of 363 (a mere point better than University of Portsmouth) and placing us third out of eight teams in Division 3. As four of the team were veterans, HERC were also placed in that mini league, with a score of 154 and in 16th position out of the 22 complete teams.

Fortunately there was enough cake for all who ran, if not for the team manager and scorer who went home hungry but happy to have seen so many represent the club and get the series off to such a great start.

Next fixture at Wellesley Woods, Aldershot on Saturday 9 th November: my favourite course. Details to be provided nearer the time, and we look forward to seeing at least as many there as at Popham.

All welcome.