Fairwater’s LCL cross country (AS) 7th Feb.
10/02/2010 by Lou.
Thanks to Fairwater for a great cross country course and a friendly welcome – just the cure we needed.
Being the morning after our dinner dance it was to be expected - early Sunday morning I found out that many of our fab female runners were done in by the evil booze and other ailments and would NOT be running. By the time we reached the leisure centre team was down to three – two hardy stalwarts – Berta, Sue and me.
Arrived at Pontypool park and we were thrilled to see a suffering but none the less there – Niki – thanks for coming Niki despite a few hours sleep, head cold and sore throat. So things were looking up
.
Then we recced the course – no way – it was like a mini fell race. As Gerry put it:‘’It seems the instructions were that we could use all of the park except for anything that could be mowed. What this meant was nothing on the course that wasn’t steep, rough, muddy or all three.’’
Andy and Dick were obviously thrilled the rest of under a cloud of doom awaiting our slog round the vertical climbs, stream crossings and already hard to stand up on seriously slippery very muddy descents. Ho hum .
Then the race. Dick passed me telling me to’ get a move on gal’ so I did ( thanks Dick ). I’m still amazed by runners like Dick who can race their own race while coaching others – I was shouted encouragement and instruction from Dick for the whole course There was also plenty of support from Fairwater organiser Mark – thanks for that.
Laurie flew past in pursuit of Andy Creber where I gather there was an uphill downhill struggle with our latest man of speed taking the lead on the ascents and gnarly fearless AC winning the descents.
I struggled to keep close to Neil and tried not to hear the female breathing advancing from behind. But Julie Davies of Griff was very kind when she overtook and even encouraged me by saying I would get her back on the down – I tried and failed.
Shame it was over really but not enough to do another lap of the course with Julie. Anyway I wanted to see our teams finish.
Sue (4th) just lost 3rd place and was followed by Niki (5th). Then Berta came in to complete the team. And we scraped a win.
So now what a fantastic xc course – so interesting and fun. A huge thanks to Sue, Niki and Berta for your brave running. I must have looked pretty done in myself as race organiser Mark bought me coat, some sweets and tea – which was nice.
The men did good too. Even on the day after the night before our men’s team have provisionally come first.
Our fast bad lads regained some credibility by running so well even after excessive amounts of alcohol and ladish behaviour, as Gerry said:
‘’Mark, with eyes like the proverbial pxxx holes in the snow proved that he still has amazing powers of recovery from a skinful at the club dinner’’
James (2nd)
Matt Stott (5th)
Mark Harvey (14th)
Laurie (22nd)
Hot on the heels of these four came the mysteriously converted ( and rebuilt? ) xc runner Andy C ( She has the power, she had the technology? ).
Well done Andy (27th) ahead of 10 times club champion Luke(33rd)
Next was Neil, Dick, Gerry, John Thomas, My Rob, Kev, Nick Davies, Andy George and Phil Scrivins.
Well done to all those who ran and thanks again to Fairwater for putting on a fab course being great hosts.
