Somehow I had managed to get myself on the Cumbria Team for this year’s Inter-Counties XC Team, held in Cofton Park in Birmingham. I had agreed to run a couple of months before if needed and already knew that it was the day before the first English Championship fell race at Long Mynd. It seemed like such a great idea back then, but the nearer the weekend got, the more if sounded just a little too daunting! Still I’d get a county vest and see some good runners in action.
I travelled down to my parents in Warwick on the Friday night with Sam, who was also doing the same double as me. We made good use of M&S food on the journey down, reckoning that traditional fast food is not what true athletes eat! My parents took great care of us all weekend, feeding and watering us copiously which was far better than staying in any hotel or B&B!
Saturday morning we headed to Cofton Park, and it then hit me what a big event this is! We soon found the Cumbrian Tent and got settled. It felt like no time at all before it was time to warm up. Sam and I walked the course to familiarise ourselves and then went through some warm up drills. Not something I’m that practiced at doing! It was a bit worrying that we didn’t seem to have a full team there until we actually lined up in our pens, but we started with the bare minimum of 6 to count.
After a wee false start we were off, and although I tried to stay with Sam who starts steadily and keeps an even pace I was off too fast again. It was then a case of just hanging on. In the end I was the 5th out of our 5 finishers, so we didn’t get a team position, unfortunately. I managed a reasonable time, obviously about 7 minutes off the winning time of Charlie Purdue – but hey I’m not a flat runner!!
It was a great experience and made me realise just how good our good runners are!
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