At the Gwent XC League match at Brecon on Saturday a much depleted squad of juniors and a resilient team of senior men and women competed in the 3rd of this season’s 4 fixtures against the best of the South Wales teams and teams drawn from Bristol and Bath. Top marks to the senior men who assembled enough fire power to not only win the team event on the day but to stretch their overall lead in Division one.
Apart from a short shower as we passed through Crickhowell, the Senior Men were bathed in sunshine for the third Gwent League race in Brecon. With many runners out through injury we had a slightly depleted team to try and keep Wells and Yeovil in prime position for Championship. However, Matthew Lewis was a surprise presence at the race and was quickly persuaded to race despite a lack of running in the past two months. His fitness had been sustained by 50km of rowing each week!
The Brecon course is fast. Smooth grass sports fields, couple of little banks to run up and 3 laps, approximately 10km. Quick out of the starting pen were Jack Bancroft and Alex Wiltshire with Andrew Deamer not far behind. Jon James running with an injury took the first lap very easy. Jack kept his position and ran an excellent race to finish 8th. Both Alex and Andrew did slow slightly with Jon Gilling catching both. Passing Alex, Jon whispered keep ahead of the green and red strip – Les Croupiers club, currently lying in 2nd behind Wells and Yeovil in the league. It certainly worked and Alex finished strongly in 17th, with Jon just ahead in 16th, and both were ahead of the Les Croupier runner.
With a sensible start, Jon James pushed forward on the 2nd and 3rd laps, working through the field and passing Jon, Alex, Andrew and Matthew. Despite the injury he managed a 10th place, hopefully without further aggravating his injury. Andrew and Matthew ran close to each other but even with the lack of running (the rowing obviously helped!) Matthew managed to finish ahead in 36th, just beating another Les Croupier runner, and Andrew, our 6th finisher in 41st.
Simon Prior finished in a solid 82nd but Dave Stanfield had to finish the race with a sore hamstring and sensibly didn’t race for the line. Simon Arnold ran well to finish in 127th and Rex Whitcombe in 147th but said that the Southern of England Parliament Hill race was still in his legs. More rest needed!
So with what we thought was a depleted team, we came out top team with 923 points and a cumulative score of 3386, 75 points ahead of our nearest rivals, Les Croupier and 207 points ahead of third place Neath. We even managed to pull slightly away from Les Croupier as we were only 29 points ahead after Blaise Castle. Thanks to all for turning up as each individual helps by pushing back a runner from our closest competition.
Also worth noting, Jon James lies in 3rd overall as an individual and 1st v40. Well done!
For the juniors it was great to see Minor boy Chris Ellis, and three of the u13 boys squad, including Johnny Ellis and Luke Prior, and u17 Sam Harding all making the trip for great runs. We await final positions.
Roll on the last fixture, Swansea on Sunday 13 March. Hope you can all make it and help crown us the Champions!
Results from Gwent League are at http://www.gwent-league.org.uk/