ECCA Women's National Cross Country Relay Championship, Berry Hill Park, Mansfield
Belles create history at Mansfield
Charlie Dickinson writes: It was the first time in the history of this prestigious event, the National Cross Country relay, that Belgrave had sent a women’s team. In the past they had preferred the easier journey to take part in the Reigate Priory event rather than the long haul up to Mansfield.
Our three heroines, Rose, Jojo and Fiona (a very late replacement for the virus stricken Mel) all ran really well over the fast, but by no means easy, 3km lap. On arrival, we were welcomed to a very nasty squall, soaking us in our warm up and sending some of the tents high into the air. Luckily, the rained ceased in time for the start of the race, but left the open fields very wet. This with the winding, undulating part of the course through the woods makes for quite a tricky circuit.
On the first leg, Rose coped well with the elbows and knees on the first corner and ran a very sensible controlled race. Coming out of the woods, she dug deep to get round that nasty extra loop up around the top of the park and finished with her usual flourish. Anything around 12 minutes would have been good on the course, Rose ran 11.39.
On leg two, Jojo set off purposefully to try to wind some of the other teams in. She did this in a very controlled manner pulling us up several places. The question was, who would be quicker, Rose with her extra speed or Jojo with her superior stamina? The pair had trained stride for stride in the sessions leading up to the race, and therefore not surprisingly, there were only a couple of seconds in it with Jojo clocking 11.37.
Our real star was Fiona, giving up a hockey match at very short notice to make up the team. Fiona is very strong as she had shown only two weeks previously running 3.38 for the Yorkshire marathon off very little training. She held the Belle’s position on the last leg finishing just a second behind MK who were in 32nd place out of well over 100 teams.
As we were unable to register Fiona at such short notice, we had to, unfortunately, run as a non-scoring team. However, we have now created a precedent and hopefully this will become a regular event in the Belle’s racing calendar.
Result; 1. AFD ‘A’ 30;00.95, 2. AFD ‘B’ 31:26.45, 3. City of Stoke 31:35.45
Belgrave unofficially, 33rd 35:52.00 (Rose O’Brien 11.39 (43), Jojo Rhodes 11.37 (31) , Fiona Maddocks 12.35 (33)
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.