Race Report – Noelwyn Daniel

1st Round - Singleton Park Swansea

Cross country in school was never my strong point which may explain why I hadn’t bothered with such an idiotic idea of running through mud on a wet winter’s Sunday afternoon. With the 1st round in Swansea being on a Saturday afternoon however I decided to give this a go. With the added incentive that we actually entered the Gwent Cross Country League as a Club for the very 1st time,  it was time to dip my toes into the world of cross country.

We had a couple of experienced cross country runners in Paul Osbourne and Mark Jones with Keith also having raced a few of these in his time. Making up the numbers were myself and Andy Hanney.

How does the Gwent CCL work ? – you can register a team of 8 runners with the 1st 5 scoring points. There are no race numbers, you just collect a numbered disk as you cross the finish line which has your finishing position on it. These positions translate into points so for example if there were 300 runners the winner would pick up 300 points and you then it cascades down through the positions until the last runner in will collect 1 point.

It certainly brings out the competitive team spirit, if you pass the runner in front then there’s an extra point for the club. The course in Swansea was pretty firm under foot and also pretty hilly with the course being 4 laps equating to 10.4Km.

I took the early decision not to go off too quickly until I’d seen what one lap looked like – might have been wise to run a warm up lap first but then I was concerned that this may be over doing things slightly and would have given the wrong impression to my competitors that I was taking this seriously !!

I allowed Paul, Mark and Keith to go off ahead plus some 250 other runners whilst I paced myself. I gradually picked the pace up on each consecutive lap and with the added pleasure of now passing runners at a regular interval this proved to make the afternoon an enjoyable one. It certainly beats coming off the bike and having runners pass you for the rest of the afternoon !!

Mark and Paul had a fine tussle up ahead with Mark claiming the bragging rights after round 1 finishing in a time of 46:12, Paul in 46:35, myself in 47:38, Keith in 49:37 and Andy in 63:32  We picked up 323 points and this left us in 4th position in Division 4 after Round 1. There were 269 finishers. We finished in 42nd  place as a Club on the day out of 56 taking part.

A brilliant experience and one I would strongly recommend – I am now a convert to the cross country experience especially when it involves representing the Club and racing as a team which is not an experience you get from Triathlon itself.

Worth mentioning that Pete Osbourne also ran and finished in a time of  38:52 and in 50th position. We are currently in contract negotiations with Swansea Harriers to bring Pete back into line and away from the Swansea Jacks !!!!

Race Report – Noelwyn Daniel