The Saucony National Cross Country Relays were held at Berry Hill Park, Mansfield this weekend where they have been staged since 1989.
Over a 1000 teams competed over the 10 Races. This event is now part of the build up to the Trials at the end of November to get into the GB Team for the European Cross Country Championships so many a potential athlete for that Team were in action. Since the advent of the event, all the top British cross country runners have competed over the course around Berry Hill Park and with the various laps remaining the same, consistent records have been established and are regularly challenged. The positioning of the event in early November makes it an ideal competition for athletes aiming to qualify for the Great Britain team to take part in the European Cross Country Championships a month later and at the same time support their club.
The Course at Berry Hill was a mixture of good parkland, a wooded section with lots of undulations and a fast finishing section make it a great course for the event. This year the weather on the day saw freezing rain churning up the course for an additional challenge but the Buxton AC junior teams were more than equal to the testing conditions and held their own against the best in the country!
The under 17 girls team had a particularly fantastic race! Ellie Wilson who led the team out on the first leg ran an outstanding time of 9:21:10 the 10th fastest on her leg (the 12th fastest performance on the day!). Second leg runner Amy Whelan also ran an excellent time of 10:29:90 maintaining a team 14th and last leg runner Lucy Bednall ran 10:22:45 for an overall team position on 16th overall out of 49 teams who competed. Also running for Buxton were Heather Wilshaw and Ava Hazelhurst who both ran excellent times in this highly competitive competition.
The under 17 boys also did their Club proud led out by England International Sam Soles who ran an impressive 9:46:85 to put the team in 25th, passing to Stu Diamond who maintained a team position of 27th with Will Longden, another England International runner, on the last leg pulling the team into an overall position of 20th overall. Ed Diamond and Harry Bond also raced in this category and had great runs with amazing experiences of racing the best in the country.
Oliver Ecob raced in the under 13 boys race coming in a respectable 94th. The U13 girls team were led out by Lucy Whelan who had a strong run to finish 87th, passing to Rebecca Cudahy on the second leg and Grace Bond who raced well to finish in an overall team position of 81st.