Cross Country

The bain of many a school aged child. Mostly, you either love it or hate it - a bit like Marmite! I've always run Cross Country, ever since I started running seriously at the age of 14........many, many years ago ;)
Today was the joint Yorkshire and Humberside Cross Country Championships held at the Northern Racing College near Doncaster. I was expecting a pancake flat course so was taken by surprise when the course offered up a long shallow climb followed by a shorter, slightly steeper, offering in each lap.
My race plan was to start very conservatively and gradually work my way throught the field, picking off other "athletes" and hopefully, other club members ( I run for the City of Hull Athletic Club ).
It's difficult to hold back when 100's of other runners steam off into the distance, but I had my plan and gainfully stuck with it. 1 x medium lap ( 2km ) and 3 x long laps ( 3k each ) gave us over 11k of racing ( I measured it at 11.6k on my Garmin ). Throughout the race I picked up places, catching two club mates early on then it's a bit of a blur until the final lap and a half where I managed to catch and overtake two more club members.
All in all I'm quite pleased. Probably not quite as "race fit" as I'd like to be, but who ever is? It was a successful day's racing and we managed to bag that photo - result!