Bedford Harriers A.C.


 

 

 

 

Southern Counties XC Championships
(15k)
24th January 2009

  

Official Results
Stephen Earley 1:01:44
Gareth Waite 1:06:30
Alistair Vile 1:17:06
Tom Lamb 1:22:31



A dank and horrible Saturday saw the Harriers diehards turn up for a long and winding 15,000 metres of mud, mud and more mud. A Harriers team which at one point had peaked at 13, dipped down to 7 pushed back up to 9 before realistically plummeting down to a poultry 5 took up the Gauntlet of the 2009 Southern X Country Championships.

 

Steve Earley was early and informed us that the course was 4 laps with each lap consisting of 1 long hill, (800m at least) which was covered in mud, mud and more mud.  After a brief warm up and a quick photo by Lamb and Lamb Photographers, we made our way to the start.  The horn blew I apologised to those around me and the gun was fired……….we were off!

 

Steve Earley sped off, Gareth Waite followed with myself, Tom Lamb and Bill Billington bringing up the rear.  All the Harriers ran well from Steve in 152nd through to Bill who managed two and a half laps before common sense prevailed and he retired before the coffee ran out in the refreshment hall.

 

The official results are given below:

 

Steve Earley (152nd) in 1h01m44s

Gareth Waite (268th) in 1h06m30s

Al Vile (503rd) in 1h17m06s

Tom Lamb (578th) in 1h22m31s

Bill Billington DNF

 

The winner skipped round in a mere 51m08s! (show off!)

 

I would like to say that overall that this was a good team performance but as a team was 6 to score and we only fielded 5 I can’t!  Therefore 5 great performances of absolute grit and determination were given on the day by the Harriers in what was just an appetizer to The National X Country Champs at Parliament Hill on February 24th 2009.

 

As usual my thanks to those that competed.

 

Goodbye Farewell and Amen

Al Vile

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