Popham Airfield was the venue for the final Hampshire League Cross-Country fixture of the season.
Usually composed of five annual fixtures, this year’s schedule was condensed down to four, due to ongoing difficulties in securing a fifth venue for the league; hopefully these issues can be resolved for future years.
With the worst of storm Eunice having already ravaged the UK over the course of Friday afternoon, the green light was given for the fixture to go ahead on Saturday morning.
However, conditions would prove to be far from easy, as heavy rain and high winds made for difficult running conditions!
In light of the above, as well as various other race commitments, the Reading AC Senior Men’s team was somewhat light on numbers come the starter’s gun at 2:30pm on Saturday afternoon.
Nevertheless, six men donned the red, white and blue vest, ready to navigate a course that was made up of 1 small lap, followed by three large laps, for a total of approximately 10.5km.
Ryan O’Brien would ultimately be the first Reading man home: bolstered by a quick start, he managed to master the Hampshire mud in order to make it around in a very respectable 30th place (and a clocking of 40:32), his best finish of the year. Slightly further back was Arturo Martinez de Murguia, who produced a solid outing to finish in 62nd place in a time of 43:17.
Not too far behind Arturo was David Lewis, who much like O’Brien, pulled off his highest finish of the season with an improved position of 68th and a clocking of 43:55. Fourth scorer was Charlie
Madelaine, who also had a much improved run compared with the Prospect Park fixture, in order to cross the line in a time of 47:01, enough to earn him 114th position.
Exactly three minutes behind Madelaine was Andy McDonald, who ran a solid race to come through in 138th position, and with 50:01 on the stopwatch. Following on from Andy was Gerry O’Driscoll, who assured me that he thoroughly enjoyed the muddy and undulating course, and was rewarded with an 188th place finish, in a time of 56:26.
In terms of the team event, the Reading men amassed a total of 412 points between the first five scorers, which was enough for 9th place on the day, unfortunately our weakest outing of the year. Nonetheless, the team finished in a very respectable joint 4th place with Basingstoke & Mid Hants in the end of season table, behind AFD (first place), and Southampton AC (second place).
As for the individual rankings, congratulations go to Dan Thorne, who finished eighth place in the Senior Men’s overall individual rankings for the season, and to Richard Price, who ended the season in second place in the Veteran Men rankings.
Parliament Hill Fields will play host to the club’s final outing of the season, the English National XC Championships. Run over a course of 12km, it will no doubt be a gruelling endeavour of cross-country running, with plenty of mud and hills in store for those running.
