Southern XC Champs in 'Stamina Park'

Our streak of avoiding boggy courses continued this past weekend when a few brave souls travelled down to Brighton to run in the South of England XC Championships. Decent weather allowed for a soft, but not too bad course - which was lucky, since there were some pretty nasty hills from start to finish. Our women, who were somewhat shorthanded, managed a spectacular 6th place finish behind Sue's 23rd overall placing. In the Veteran Men's... erm... Senior Men's race we managed a 24th place as well as a 59th place for our B team (out of 79 teams - I think my biggest surprise was that we actually had enough for two teams of 6), while North London "rivals" (and I use that term loosely) won the whole race. Good for them. We also had quite a few youngsters out racing as well, with James leading our U15 boys to a 16th team place and our only young athletes team finish (you can see a video of the U15 boys’ race here).

Thanks to all of those who made the journey down, drove athletes and stood there for the whole senior men's race twirling that rattle (I'd call it a clacker, but whatever) - even hitting his head on it. Great atmosphere at the course and hopefully it is used for other races in the future (though I can't say any of the men who ran 15km on it would agree with me). [note from Sue: someone, somewhere, decided to dub the park in which the race was held 'Stamina Park' rather than the official Stanmer Park name. Apt, me thinks.]

Results as follows:

28 January, South of England Corss Country Championships, Stanmer Park, Brighton

U20 Men (ca 8000m)
97th Izaiah Turner 40:19
98 Finishers

U17 Men (ca 6000m)
131st Miron Woldemichael 24:47
144th Daniel Szajna 25:41
156 Finishers

U15 Men (ca 4500m)
37th James Wooldridge 16:07
73rd Johnny Naylor 16:39
84th Max Robertson
198th Jasper Crockford (TBC - hmm not sure what that means...)
202nd Alex Ahern
DNF Max Heap
211 Finishers
16th team out of 27 teams

U13 Boys (ca 3000m)
148th Luke Gray 12:28
165th Alain Gorrand 12:54
192 Finishers

U13 Girls (ca 3000m)
132nd Ottavia Laidler 12:57
173rd Molly Harrison 13:37
DNF Zenya
218 Finishers

U15 Girls (ca 4000m)
131st Lauren Gee 17:27
139th Genevieve Weston 17:39
161st Lily Beckford 18:14
198 finishers

U17 Women (ca 5000m)
70th Yanna Raykov 21:11
98th Kathleen Jackson 25:57
99th Jade O’Brien 25:57
100 Finishers


Women (ca 8000m)
23rd Sue Rust 32:23
57th Claire Morrissey 34:15
85th Iva Raykov 35:36
87th Katharine Daish 35:46
115th Jackie Wastell 36:54
335 Finishers
6th team out of 49


Men (ca 15km)
130th George Stewart 57:17
199th Martin Potter 59:32
222nd Steve Monaghan 1:00:10
232nd Chris Hartley 1:00:44
268th John Falhive 1:02:13
312th Gavin Evans 1:03:51
349th Dominic Jackson 1:05:09
404th Andy Owen 1:07:14
418th Eddie Bayne 1:07:35
422nd Will Whitaker 1:07:40
516th Carl Heap 1:11:02
655th Russel Weston 1:19:08
745 Finishers Total
24th team out of 79, 59th team place for B team