cross-country season 2004/05

Gavin Hall, Middle Distance Coach 

> go to - Middle Distance Training

St Albans AC - Review of the Cross Country Season

"If you throw enough mud", so the saying goes, "some of it is bound to stick". Well, for the last few months, the extreme sports division of St Albans AC has been throwing plenty of mud around in a range of cross-country races, with more than a little success.

We decided to have a go at the Chiltern league series, which is open to all clubs in Hertfordshire, and of course the Country Cross Country Championships too. Now cross-country is not to everyone's taste, but we quickly found it appealed to a good few of our athletes, not to mention their Mums and Dads.

The Chiltern League is an excellent series of five rounds, We ran at four of them - Luton, Oxford, Watford and Wing - taking between six and twelve athletes to each one. This was a strategy in stark contrast to other clubs, some of which took over 12,000 athletes to each event. Well, it looked like a lot anyway.

Cunningly, we always delayed announcing our team line up until the day before each event. This was for two reasons - firstly to avoid news of our line up leaking out, and secondly, because we only got round to working it out a couple of nights before. Sorry Mums and Dads, we will do better next time!

Team Manager's at each event were a combination of Tim, Dr Liz and I. Anyone who knows me will realise that "manager" can only be very loosely applied to me though. Our duties involved getting everyone to the start line properly warmed up, and returning home exactly the same number of athletes that we started with. We also devised some cunning motivational / tactical speeches such as "run faster you lot!", and "come on, go faster or you're walking home!", both of which were partially successful.

The athletes were magnificent. They displayed a maturity and composure which athletes 20 years their elder often fail to comprehend. Euan ran every race, getting faster and faster, and tactically more and more aware (that means he learned to run really fast right from the start rather than two seconds after the start). He was central to the success of the U13 boys, with Robbie, Will and Mikey following close behind him. Notably, Euan has no nerves. We had to resort to attempting to stress him out before the start, rather than calm him down. He runs like a train, and I fully expect to see him in one sport or another on TV one day. As a late addition to the team, his much younger sister Anna also demonstrated an exceptional turn of speed. Dr Liz has already started a programme of genetic cloning, and next year we fully expect to have a few more Euans and Annas lining up!

Robbie stood out to me as another great sportsman, as he battled on in the final round after hurting his ankle near the start of the race. It was a truly horrific day, and Robbie's courage on that occasion was essential to securing our U13 boys 3rd place overall in the series.

So to our female athletes. Various social engagements made the composition of our girls teams something of a random affair. However, Abby, Jess, and Lucian were always there for the Under 13s, and how they battled each time out. Fighting cold and rain, and risking slightly damaging their hairstyles and nails, the girls fought the series tooth and nail, achieving 4th place overall in the series.

Abby typified the spirit and courage of the girls in the last round by completing the course with only one shoe, such was the stickiness of the mud. She was brilliant, as were he fellow athletes.

So at the end of the Chiltern league series, we have a few medals won, a few battles fought and a thousand good memories. Mums and Dads have almost got the mud off their shoes, and our athletes have sharpened themselves up for the coming track season. It was pretty gruesome at times, and anyone who ran for the club should feel very proud of their contribution, regardless of how fast they ran.

> go to - Chiltern League results

Now the Country Cross Country Championships, set in Watford, were another story all together. To make a change, we fielded 46 athletes, entering a team in every race. This strategy of deploying our full forces ensured total victory - well, we won a bag full of trophies and fourteen county medals. Tim has almost finished grinding all the names of the other clubs who have held these trophies for the last nine years off the trophies, and we will soon be stamping PROPERTY OF ST ALBANS AC all over them - because we're never giving them back. The extra weight meant we had to pay a fuel surcharge to the coach driver on the way home.

Our Chiltern League hard-core all ran well, and many other athletes turned up the heat too. Athletes such as Luke, Lucy, Tom, Megan, Steve and dozens of others played their part in making it a really great day - take a look at the Herts AAA website to find out more.

So there you have it - our first serious attempt at cross-country for some time, and it has to be said we did really well. Various mind numbingly stupid red-tape regulations prevent us from displaying a picture of any of these events, but to give you a sense of how it felt, simply:

• Take a cold shower, and don't dry off
• Put a vest and shorts on
• Stand out in the garden and roll around in the mud and grass (ideally it should be cold)
• Run as fast as you can up hill and down dale for ten to twenty minutes, or until sick

Failing that, stay tuned for more fun and frolics as we get ready for the track season. We can't wait - it's warmer, dryer, less muddy, safer, shorter, faster, and we're going to win a lot more good stuff!

Coach Gavin