Reading Athletics Club got their Hampshire League Cross Country season underway at the weekend in Aldershot.
The weather was unseasonally warm for this time of year but made for good conditions under foot although rather warm to race.
It was also the largest ladies field for a Hampshire League race with a total of 196 athletes racing.
In a successful outing for Reading AC, they claimed to second place finishes with the Reading AC team and the Reading AC Vets, only being beaten by Aldershot on their home event.
Reading also had their maximum turn out with 21 athletes competing.
First home for Reading, running extremely confidently, was Lauren Church who started her cross country season in style with a seventh place finish.
Lauren was followed by a new athlete to Reading, Nicola Lee, in 13th and Anna Boniface finished the team off in 14th place. All three ran very strongly pushing Reading to a very well deserved second place.
U20 athlete Mia Waldmann ran strongly to finish 24th closely followed by Laurie Marlow with 35th place and Hayleigh Wood who paced the race brilliantly finished in 40th place.
Next in were Ella Saunders 46th, Catherine Hill 50th and Katherine West 52nd .
The first vet lady Leanne James stuck to the task in hand and ran well in 73rd closely followed by fellow vet Susan Francis 80th and Helen Antram 91st which gave the vet team a strong second place behind Aldershot.
Splitting Susan and Helen up was Shirley Ann Dix (81st). All these ladies finished well within the top half of the race which just goes to show the depth we have.
Julia Henderson, U20 Lucy Richards, Elsa Curran and U20 Simran Dhillan were packed close together and then finishing with Lee Fellows, Alisa Loyal and Claire Mills.
The U20 athletes ran strongly to take fourth place.
Report by Debbie Taylor
