National CC Seniors & U20: Top 40 for Shepherd & Doye, SM team 19th
Ed Shepherd finished 40th to lead the Senior Men’s team to 19th place, in the 135th staging of the English National Cross Country championship. Elsewhere the same day, Ben Potrykus finished 4th in the senior long-course Scottish National championship in the vest of Inverclyde, an impressive follow-up result to his short-course title back in November.
Back in England, Joel Doye had earlier finished 31st in the Junior Men’s championship. This was Joel’s first appearance at the National. He set out with purpose, held a steady position throughout and delivered a considerably improved performance over his 22nd place at the Southern championship last month. We look forward to him joining the senior ranks next year.
The course at Bolesworth Castle in Cheshire was predominantly over flat and firm farmland, a perfect contrast from the fell race in which Ed Shepherd picked up an injury last summer that meant, unusually, his winter season debut for the club came in our final fixture. He started cautiously, estimated at around 60th after 1km and around 55th at the end of the first of two laps, before steadily picking up places all the way through, to finish 40th.
Second in was Tom Beedell in 104th. After making a somewhat aggressive start, to avoid a bottleneck at a gate around 500m into the race, Tom admitted to being a little deflated to hear cries from the crowd at the halfway point that he was in around 100th since he’d targeted higher and was already on the limit. The second lap was more of a battle to retain places, which he did to deliver his best performance at these championships since 2016, when he was 84th. Angus Holford had started even faster, but settled down after Beedell came past him around 3km into the race. His perception of losing places throughout the second lap was not borne out by counts from spectators, but meant his 130th place, exactly equalling his best ever senior National position from 2011, did not immediately feel as good as it should have.
Dan Steel has been a reliable team member for almost a decade now and was next to finish in 291st. This was his best National for four years and he was happy to come in ahead of familiar faces from the Met League. Another demonstration of how well he ran was that his National to Southern position ratio came in at almost exactly 2.0, which no doubt will be satisfying for someone who spends his working week juggling numbers.
Tom Adolphus had not been sure what to expect in his first Senior National, but was pleased with the experience and performance of his 350th place, after making the journey with his Cambridge University clubmates. Simon Beedell reprised his ‘team anchor’ role from the Southern. He admitted to struggling to know how far was left in the race at various points, since one field and one hedge looks much like another, and there were a lot, but he dug in and closed the team in 409th.
The team’s 19th place was a very welcome result, and fine example of consistency over recent seasons, being one position up on 2022, and just one down on 2020. We were first Essex club, ahead of Newham and Essex Beagles (23rd), and second Met League club, behind only Highgate, who finished 4th. Sneaking just ahead of 5-time champions Belgrave Harriers is deeply satisfying too.
Our one non-scorer on the day was Bertie Powell, in 1039th, making his slightly-more-than-one-fully-functional leg count to provide valuable backup. Alistair Holford had also started his favourite race of the year, but the flaring of a calf injury reduced his number of fully functional legs further below two than was necessary to complete the race safely, and withdrew.
There were three second-claim Woodies also in the field. James Stockings was 93rd, and 3rd man home for Hercules Wimbledon, who came 9th team; Tom Rehal, running for University of Leeds, was 140th, a fine debut in this competition after tracking occasional-training-partner Holford for much of the race; and Mike Waddington was 219th, running for Ware Joggers. Former member Hywel Care, back in the UK after several years in Japan, was 222nd for Liverpool Harriers, and may be in the market to be snapped up again if he moves to London after obtaining his teaching qualification.
Bolesworth was a new venue for the National. That the extensive grounds meant that no race required more than 2 laps, and in turn that there was little lapping, was very welcome. Less welcome were the long windswept stretches with no spectators; the venue’s location, inaccessible to any public transport; and (not unrelatedly) very long and poorly managed queues to park, which announcements suggested had contributed to many competitors missing the earlier races.The 1472 finishers in the Senior Men and 773 in the Senior Women were both figures around 15% down on Nottingham in 2020, the last comparable (i.e. non-London) fixture, also suggesting fewer chose to travel. No announcement has yet been made of the venue for 2024. It seems increasingly difficult to find suitable venues for this fixture, but we hope these issues can be addressed when the Midland Counties host the event next year.
