Bye Bye XC...until next time

What a busy and exiting weekend I’ve had, starting off with a reunion of the best girl friends anyone could ask for – luckily it was a ‘rest’ day on Saturday due to my final XC race of the season today.

We all went for one of those photo experiences and dressed up, played with helium balloons and party poppers, all very cheesy, you get the picture (excuse the pun)  but so much fun! Back to mine for tea and cake then out for a scrummy meal at which point Meg said ‘you haven’t done any blog recently’… so here’s that shout out I promised you Meg ;o)

After a sufficient carb-loading dinner of pizza and baked Alaska, (sans alcohol) and good old catch up I woke up fresh as a daisy and ready to go this morning! That was until I looked outside, yes as per usual on a British weekend it was grey, windy, wet, and freezing oh so tempting to stay at home in front of the cozy wood burner Matt had put on!

Pre-race (note clean legs and huuuge puddle between me and the start)

Anyway today was the final XC race in the Manchester Area League and was held at my home club Stockport Harriers. I’ve just realised the last blog I did was also about a XC held at my club…but it was a different league (last time it was the ‘Greater Manchester XC Championships’).

Post race MUD GALORE

So today was the same course but much more saturated so higher risk of loosing shoes and socks en route, I did my laces up super tight so by the time we started I couldn’t actually feel my feet-although that might also be due to the immensely cold puddles I had to walk through to get to the start line! There were 117 of us so once the gun went off it was pure carnage and I was more concerned about falling and getting trampled on with spikes than getting into a good position! Eventually the field separated and I managed to get into 14^th place before the killer hill, then somehow got a spurt of energy again and picked off 5 girls while going up that hill. I remained in 9^th position until the end coming in just 2 seconds slower than the last time but in same position (only today it was out of 117, last time it was out of 37!).

So I think that’s a good finish to the XC season and as the terminator said...I'll be back’!

Stockport Harriers didn’t win the league but we came 5^th overall, not too shoddy!!

Hanging up the Spikes for now

Now its pure slog until marathon day 69 days and counting – eeeeek!