Bagworth Heath XC

It was my 21st cross country league race for Badgers and probably the muddiest and most heavy going underfoot. I’d strung together a couple of half decent training weeks but was suffering from another cold which wasn’t anywhere near as bad as some of the other ailments I’d had through 2023, I was well able to run through it. I’ve raced at Bogworth Heath before, it always seems a desperately soulless place, probably ok for taking your dog out for a ramble but ultimately it is a former colliery site, landscaped to encourage outdoor pursuits such as walking and fishing. I traveled over with Pip and Judy and realised during conversation on the way over that I hadn’t addressed the problem of altering my negative attitude towards cross country running! There would still be time before the season would be out. The race is usually a wet and boggy affair and this year it was compounded by a sustained period of heavy rain.

Knowing we had a strong side out, there was no pressure to do anything other than score. I wasn’t interested, or probably capable, of challenging for individual honours this season and when Adrian Payne went careering past me on the first descent, I followed him but let him ease away from me on the following stretch of grass. I say grass, if this was horse racing, the going would be decidedly heavy. The narrow route had no firm edges, every step saw you sink into the mud and slogging your way out of it. I feared the second lap would be worse than the first having had 400 runners churn it up but truth be told there was little difference.

Each lap was about as bad as could be. On lap two, I resorted to following in the footsteps of the runner ahead of me, quite literally, as the hope was that he had squashed much of the underlying water out of that portion of ground with his foot-strike, allowing me to land and propel myself away from marginally more firm terrain. Whether it worked or not I do not know. What I do know is that I was glad to be finished. I was cold and wet, had wasted a lot of energy on boggy ground and I rolled in 34th ultimately, caked in filth from the knees down. I was happy to let too many people through and found myself doing battle with people from my distant past, reflecting my relative effort I guess. I didn’t want a sprint finish on such a soft surface so I put in an effort on some harder path just before the run to the finish, to afford myself a comfortable gap. With the amount of rain we’d had and the next race being only a week away, I was expecting more of the same at Holly Hayes the following weekend. The team won well in the end which was the main thing, with Dave Hill winning overall which was not altogether a surprise but still great to see. He had the added responsibility of captaincy on a cold morning so to perform optimally was a credit to his significant talent.

Ravenstone Cross Country

I didn’t run any of the club’s cross country races last season and we lost the league title we had held for several seasons. This year, I made it my aim to do as many as possible and help the club try and win the title back under the new captaincy team of Dave Hill and Ryan Preece. Ravenstone was the league opener and a venue I had not raced before. In fact, the only time I remember going to Ravenstone was to value a house many, many years ago. I don’t think we sold it, nice as it was, probably a bit too far out of the traditional patch we covered back then. Team mates who raced it last season remarked about how hard it was underfoot in so much as a lack of rain in the weeks prior left much of the course as firm as a road and therefore the customary trail shoes were pointless and for some even quite painful. I grabbed a lift off my old mate Bob (Dawe) who had rejoined the club in the week and took two pairs of shoes to choose from but an early recce of the course meant there was no option but to wear trail shoes, hard as part of the course may be, there were large sections early on that would only warrant something with good grip.

We were missing many runners who you would ordinarily expect to score heavily for us – only Danny was in action and he ran superbly to finish second. I thought he could win at the start looking at the field but there was a hitherto unknown or “new guy” from Harborough AC who took the win. I felt it was important for me to place as high as possible as every point could be crucial in the grand scheme of things. With a full squad out, I have every confidence our team will come out on top with or without me, although it is still nice to contribute something points wise. We were unlikely to win at Ravenstone but we didn’t want to finish last or close to as it would effectively end our title hopes at the first hurdle.

The two lap course was a real mixed bag. Some long dull stretches of farm track, unforgiving on the feet, then a fair chunk of saturated farmer’s fields, puddles and slop. I placed 22nd on the day which was the very best I could manage and the team finished third which was fantastic. Only Danny finished ahead of me from the club. Chris Tweed, a fellow veteran ran a great race to come in a few places behind me. The scoring works in so much as your top eight runners score points based on position but the eight must include at least two veterans (over 40’s). The lowest points total wins etc.

I don’t really enjoy cross country, as I soon rediscovered 20 metres or so into the race. Hordes of folk keenly piling through muddy puddles like Peppa Pig on amphetamines and me wanting to stay dry and clean and for it to all be over quickly! I resolved to make it an aim to change my attitude to a more positive one in future races, in order for me to perform better and also to at least try and enjoy the experience a little more.

My fitness (and form) was not great but I felt I could get it back to a better level if I could put some time in to train consistently and stay injury and illness free for a sustained period. I didn’t have any goal races ahead of me so I could cherry pick my efforts. I had a go at Bedworth parkrun, only to finish third (by one second) which was a disappointment as I’d never finished lower than second in my 12 outings there. I was a minute off my course best but conditions weren’t great which would explain a large part of that but I was glad that I still had some fire in the belly to put up a fight, albeit in vain.

Due to a cancellation, I received a late call up to run as a pacer in the Coventry half marathon. I’d only ever paced one race previously (officially at least) and that was the Market Harborough 10K when I picked up the V40 prize in 9th place and helped absolutely nobody to their 40 minute target time, which always makes me chuckle. I enjoyed the Coventry race, it was my first time. The weather was sumptuous for running and it was a nice course with a fabulous fast five mile finish. I paced it reasonably well, coming in with about a dozen seconds to spare but off the back of a very slow final mile. Myself and Sanjay, the other 90 minute pacer noticed how the mile markers were not consistent with either of our GPS watches for the first 8 miles or so, meaning we accumulated a bit of a time buffer just in case.

The organisation of the pacers was poor, very much a case of there you go help yourself. I didn’t have a pacer’s T-shirt as promised so had to run in my vest which led to some minor chafing, Chris Tweed who was also pacing didn’t even get a flag as there was only one for his time but two pacers. Other target times had names down but no athletes in attendance. Some better planning could have had people move up or down a band to fill all the target times rather than have two for some targets and none for others. There seemed enough willing amongst those who had volunteered to help. Anyway, this race, albeit not a race as such for me, was meant to be the starting point for a good block of winter training, culminating in a successful London marathon attempt, subject to qualification, which was confirmed in late November.

Winner of the first ever Tamworth Castle parkrun!

I don’t remember it perfectly now, this is the trouble when you try and write your blog posts weeks after the event, but I managed to get a pass out for parkrun on Saturday morning. Usually, I would head for Kingsbury, especially as it is a long term goal of mine to eclipse Elaine Sherwin’s long held record of first place finishes at the Water Park – 33 I believe it is. Anyway, it was the Burton District Summer League end of season presentation on Friday night, which I attended to collect my second place V40 award to match my LRRL one of 2023. Word had got out that there was a new parkrun starting at the Castle Grounds the following day. These inaugural events are purposefully not well publicised, presumably to prevent hordes of people turning up and making life tricky for those volunteers trying to find their feet with a new start-up operation. I thought I’d give it a go, especially as it might be my best opportunity for a win. There are plenty of very fast sorts in T-town as has been proven in the following weeks. As it turned out, Kingsbury was cancelled that week anyway due to flooding I think so I drove to Ventura Park, one of my least favourite places on earth albeit the place where the fertility clinic resides that we used for having our son, so it’s not all bad I guess!

There were quite a few folks at the start, Tamworth has a large population within easy reach of the town centre venue plus the neighbouring parkrun was cancelled. I think there were 200 runners altogether although it felt like more. Many of my club colleagues, and there were several, wished me well and told me it was mine to win, as is often the case these days be it true or not, and we set off. I didn’t recognise any major known threats but as someone unfamiliar with the course, a two lap jobby, I ran in tandem with a chap from Nuneaton Harriers before he began to fade leaving me clear for a pleasant second lap. With an important cross country league race the next day, my aim was to win with as much gas in the tank as possible. The course was very flat, but made slower by a large number or tight turns and hairpins. However, it was well marshalled and by and large an excellent event. The win, in 18:10 gave me the course record, at least for a week until Lloyd Biddell arrived and sent it into orbit! I felt for the chap in second (Paul Smith) who was well clear of third. He had been hoping for at least an age category record given it was the first ever event here, but he’s a similar age to me so didn’t even bag that!

One of my goals for the new season is to get to 200 parkruns, all of which I aim to end with a top ten finish. At the time of writing (December 1st), I am on 191. I won’t add to that tomorrow due to a minor injury (and very cold weather)! The cross country race will feature in my next post. It was particularly important from my viewpoint as for Badgers to win the league, we can ill afford a poor showing as unlike on the road, you don’t get the luxury of dropping your weakest team score as an outlier. We knew in advance that several of our fastest runners would be absent so I would need to step up and run fast rather than simply make up the numbers, so that our team score would be as good as possible and we wouldn’t get trounced in the opening race. If that happened, it would be nigh on impossible to come back, even if we won each of the remaining races handsomely. No pressure then!