Today's Runner XC at Blean Woods - 24/10/99

It is difficult to overstate just how bad the weather was at the opening Today's Runner match of the season which we hosted at Blean Woods. It was possibly the most abyssmal conditions (torrential rain and gales) ever experienced at any race that the writer's been to, including the Minnis Bay "hail, sleet and sandstorms" run in January 1998. As Gerry Reilly remarked before the race, "Has one of these races ever been called off because of the weather?!" Despite this, 243 nutters, ahem, I mean "intrepid adventurers", completed the five mile course. Of the 243, 168 were men league runners, 73 were women and the remainder were guests.

There was a superb cross country debut for the club by Sarah May, who, being at home for the weekend from her Veterinary Studies at Bristol University, was able to race and obviously wasn't deterred by the weather. Her 4th place in the women's race, only behind experienced runners such as Tina Oldershaw and Caroline Houghton (who were first and second, respectively, was a great boost to the team. Carol Reid also had a solid XC debut for the club, coming 23rd woman, whilst Sue Reilly saved the day for the team by racing in the appalling conditions as no other women turned up to run. Sue hadn't originally intended to run, having been heavily involved with the race organisation. The women came 10th out of the 15 teams on the day.

For the men, Roy Palmer kept up his high standards of last year by coming 9th overall, and he was well backed up by, amongst others, Simon Kendall, Fraser Wildman, Andy Wilson, Martin Skeet and Steve Reynolds. Sue's old man Gerry also saved the day for the team in being the only vet 50 for us in the race - this was also after having organised the junior race and having helped out with the main race arragements. It was also good to see some old faces again, such as Keith Crossland-Page, who has had injury problems. Darcy Black chose possibly the worst conceivable day for making his club debut! In the combined team event, the Harriers were 5th of the 15 teams. The race was won by James Batchelder of Paddock Wood.

Great credit must go to all the people who turned up to run and all those members and their family and friends who helped with the marshalling and organising. Jack Parnell, for instance, was the pacemaker for the junior race and then he and his dad, Derek, cleared up Rough Common Village Hall after everyone had left. I am sure most of these people would rather have been sunning themselves in Spain like Chairman John Hartley was at the time! Again, the club was indebted to Roy Gooderson who somehow kept the show going, despite the wretched weather and a few unscheduled changes in personnel.

In the figures below, after the time the next column shows the overall position, the following one the position in that individual's league race (i.e. ignoring guests and runners of the opposite sex) and the final column shows the performance rating i.e. the percentage of runners beaten in that league race. Some of the later times were not recorded due to a failure with the electronic timing system.

Roy Palmer                   31:03   9   8 95.8
Simon Kendall                32:00  21  20 88.6
Fraser Wildman               32:03  24  23 86.8
Andy WilsonV40               32:51  34  33 80.8
Martin Skeet                 32:56  37  35 79.6
Sarah May                    34:27  60   4 95.8
Steve ReynoldsV40            35:14  67  61 64.1
Gerry ReillyV50              36:12  84  78 53.9
Joe HicksV40                 37:47 112  99 41.3
Keith Crossland-PageV40      39:23 136 116 31.1
Carol Reid                   39:53 146  23 69.4
Darcy Black                  40:07 153 124 26.3
Neil McGuinness              43:18 189 149 11.4
Steve Cresswell              TNR   195 153  9.0
Mick Hunt                    TNR   208 161  4.2
Sue ReillyV45                TNR   228  60 18.1