My cross-country experience

Like pretty much every English school child, at least in my generation, I ran my first cross-country race at school and much like everyone else, hated it immensely. Normally the way it works is that the PE teacher waits for the coldest, wettest day of the year and takes the kids outside and makes run around a boggy field for half an hour. We would arrive back to the changing rooms completely covered in mud, so much so it looked like I'd been swimming in it. I pity my Mum now for having to get that kit clean week after week.

While I didn't like the cold, or the wet, the one compensation was that I was reasonably good at it, at least until I got left behind as others experienced their puberty related growth spurt before me. When I did my last school cross-country at age 15 I thought I would never run one again, but this past weekend I was back playing in the mud.

I was back in the UK for the weekend and since I knew I needed to do at least one run while I was away I looked for a local race to take part in, and to my surprise I found one. I ran in what was supposed to be a 15k cross-country in a place called Irchester. Here is a link to the event:

http://www.justracinguk.com/event/wellingborough-mt-1-run-series-round-1

My thinking was that it would be harder work than a 15k on the road, so would be good training for this weekend's half-marathon in Santa Pola, while running on a variety of surfaces is supposed to be a good thing and I don't get much opportunity to run in the mud given how dry it is in Alicante.

It worked out ok, it was a nice run, there had been rain in the days before but not too much, the ground held up fairly well, it didn't turn into a mudbath as I'd feared it might. It was a fairly slow run, I put that down to not being very sure-footed, but was good exercise nonetheless.

I finished the race in 1:09:56, in 44th place of 109 runners. If you believe that it was 15km that means an average of 4:40min/km, however my GPS suggested the course was short and I'm inclined to believe it. You can see the run here:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/63936967

It has me at 4:57min/km, which I feel is closer to the truth.

I finished feeling good and able to go on, which is a good sign for the challenges to come.

No race report would be complete without a discussion of the goody bag, and I have to say in this regard the race was a huge disappointment. I'd paid 15GBP to enter, so I was expecting something half decent, but no, there was no bag whatsoever! All I received was a few flyers for other events managed by the race organizers and at the end a tiny little medal. I've only taken part in two events in the UK in the past two-and-a-half years, but with such poor value for money I won't be in a rush to go and do many more. It was really a missed opportunity for the organizers, with 400+ people taking part in the event I'm sure there are plenty of companies out there selling running related products only too happy to be able to provide samples to a captive audience, but they were just not there.

That's all for now.

Happy Running

El Maratonero