Chris leads the way!

Sinai Park in Burton was the venue for the second race in the Derby Runner XC League on Sunday and Chris Mason continued his good recent form to be first runner back for the Club. After the quagmire of the first race runners were greeted with frozen and rutted conditions in shaded areas and softer, better conditions where the sun had thawed the ground. The good news was that there was no wind and the cow pats were mainly frozen and not an immediate hazard.
There was again a big field of 364 masochists and Chris’s 57th place out of 251 in the men’s race in a time of 38.24 consolidated his early lead in the series’ MV60 category. Seven places behind Chris was Chris Gunstone who ran really well for his time of 38.45.
The performance of the day though was from Simon Hackett who improved considerably from the first race and was not hampered at all by impending fatherhood as his 70th place in 39.12 testifies. Slightly below par, after struggling to train since the first race, was Colin Mee who still managed to finish in a very respectable 85th place in 40.00. The ever consistent Paul McKay took advantage of the more frequent options to overtake on this course and also consolidated his position in the MV60 category with a 111th place finish. Andy ‘Big Mac’ Orme gained further experience of ‘proper’ XC running and should be pleased with his 136th place in only his second outing.
The closest inter-club race of the day though was between Steve Leafe and the battling Ray Udall who finished in 161 st and 162nd places respectively. Not that far behind was Malcolm Moore in 173rd place and making his XC debut, Gary Price in 195th with Steve Fowler and Tony Phillips completing the Club’s finishers in 215th and 222nd place respectively.
Full race results can be found here
The third race in the Series is at Allestree on 16th December 2012. Regulars and any other Club member who fancies giving XC a go should meet at the Green Bank Leisure Centre car park at 09.30am.