Cross country

English National Cross Country Championships

Saturday 27th February at Roundhay Park, Leeds

National cross country championships - Steph Twell

The biggest and most prestigious race in the Cross Country calender is the English National Cross Country Championships, which this year were held at Roundhay Park in Leeds, with over 8000 runners entered in the 10 races. The course was to prove quite challenging with as well as the notorious Hill 60, a few other testing climbs as well. The fact that the majority of the course was deep with mud was going to make the racing all the more difficult.

Despite not having that many runners taking part, those who did compete for the Club, put in excellent performances and showed a lot of strength and determination in finishing what were very strength sapping races.

Sam Kerfoot-Roberts, National Cross Country championships

With over 400 girls in her race, Molly Traviss had a terrific run to place 113th and finish as 10th Yorkshire scorer in the U/13 Girls. Molly is still only in her first year in this age group, so shows a lot of potential for a higher placing next year.

The U/15 Girls had Holly Callaghan finish 136th with Molly Jagger 267th. Holly was 10th in last years race but is still struggling with her return to fitness after injury.

Lorna Gill in the U/17 Ladies made it to the start line with not too much time to spare but still had a good run, finishing quite strongly to place 161st.

The U/15 Boys saw Michael Gladstone take on the challenge of completing his first National, being a Championship race the courses are longer than the Juniors usually race over, so a little more tiring too. Michael put in a determined run to finish 271st.

Sam Kerfoot-Roberts was hoping for an eye-catching run to hopefully gain him a place on the Yorkshire Team, after missing the selection race last week and he just might have done it with his 61st place. Sam had a strong run and worked hard through the mud and up the notorious hill, which reduced many to a walk and he crossed the line as 7th Yorkshire scorer. Not that far behind, Mikie Gaughan was having a pretty good run, working hard to the top of the hill. He managed to pick a few runners off as he headed toward the finish line in 139th position.

Start of girls race - National cross country

U/13 Girls

113th molly Traviss 13.54min

U/15 Girls

136th Holly Callaghan 16.37min
267th Molly Jagger 18.09min

U/15 Boys

271st Michael Gladstone 17.00min

U/17 Ladies

161st Lorna Gill 24.00min

U/17 Men

61st Sam Kerfoot-Roberts 21.50min
139th Mikie Gaughan 22.59min

Senior men

319th Andrew Thorpe 46.25min
1029th Mark Gaughan 56.42min
1266th Bill Sage 1.02.25min
1302nd Heath Reilly 1.03.44min

Senior women

272 Carole Fryer 37.36min

All the 2010 National cross country championship results are available on the English Cross Country Association web site.

See also: 2010 National cross country championship photos (Adam Kerfoot-Roberts flickr).