Mens XC SL4 - Croydon, 11/2/17
Posted by on 13 February 2017
On Saturday 11th February, we had another very good turnout for the Surrey League, Division 3 Cross Country match held at Lloyd Park. Despite being only just above freezing, the blizzard held off (that was experienced by the ladies racing up the road at Coulsdon earlier). Instead the men experienced mud, deep mud, on the two lap hilly course around the park. Classic cross country! It started off boggy and got worse, someone suggested that the MOD had been using it for tank driving practice, or perhaps Croydon Council had allowed stampeding cattle on the course earlier.
Fortunately all the Straggler men stayed on their feet, unlike some of our unfortunate competitors, who managed to ‘face plant’ in spectacular style. There were some good battles all through the field with Rob Wilcox, who paced his race really well, coming out on top in the results closely followed by Simon Ford, Oliver Garner and Paul Bowden in an intriguing race at ‘the sharp end’. The remaining scorers in the team were Roy Reeder, Crispin Allen, Malcolm Davies, Gareth Pritchard, Chris Coates and vice captain Simon Brazil. The team was completed by Ian Payne, Richard Carter, Ray Kingdon, Malcolm Fletcher, Martin Vivian, Carl Pretorius and Matt Parker, on a day for the brave, foolhardy or just plain stupid, depending on your point view!
On the day Stragglers came 3rd, behind Striders of Croydon and Fulham Running Clubs. The performance of the day was Striders of Croydon who brought their A team to the event, not surprising as this is their home turf and they have been dominating all season. Pleasingly, however, Stragglers managed to hold off West 4 Harriers to secure third place in the league overall and also well ahead of 26.2 (hooray!) and the rest of the division, a very satisfying end to the season and one of our best performances of the campaign.
See Surrey League PDF of the result here. See the Surrey League website here. See the Stragglers results here.
Lastly a big thank you to all the runners and spectators, lets keep it up!
Malcolm
