The Southern Cross Country Championships were held on Saturday on the notorious Parliament Hill Course which is fabled for it’s hills, mud, extra long distance and high standard of club runner. On show were 3 Beckenham representatives, Chris Minns, Stuart Scott (running for Kent) and our favourite 2nd claimer Clare Elms in her Dulwich Vest. Chris last ran this race back in 98 and shares the following race report.

Chris writes…..

A quick report from Saturdays  race at Parliament Hill fields:
Chaos at the start (no one expecting the gun to go off) meant that I was in the rare position of being at the front of a pen and well up the field at the top of the first hill.  I kept going in this style for the first lap, and sat in about 60th coming into the last stetch of the first lap.

After the first set of hills on the second lap (7km in) I was in so much trouble I thought I was going to have to drop out.  I tried to relax and use all that stamina training to ride it out and not lose too many places.  This sort of worked until about the 12k mark, when I realized I couldn’t feel my arms anymore.  I kept trying to hang in there, but got caught by a few familiar faces.  Still managed to finish up 78th, 5 places inside my last attempt on this course in 1998!  I wanted to push myself to test my fitness today, but top 60 at 5k was too early to be that far up the field.  I really suffered trying not to go backwards the last half of the race.

Saw Stuart before and after, but don’t know how he got on.  Claire Elms had an excellent race, finishing 14th or 15th.  Great to have Mel, Will, and the dogs for support.  I heard a few others cheering for Beckenham as well – maybe we could get a contingent out next time?

Chris

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