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.