Holly Hayes XC Race Report

The final race of the Derby Runner XC series was held at Holly Hayes, Whitwick. It was a clear morning as the regular mud runners started to assemble at Greenbank. By 9:30am there were six of us, not enough for a scoring team leaving the gates open for our neighbours Ivanhoe to possibly overtake us in the league standings. Speculation grew in the cars on possible members going straight to the event and where we might finish in the league. We had been steadily improving through the season which had been a tough one. From the mixed conditions of frozen ground and ankle deep mud of Bagworth Heath, the driving rain and muddy banks of Foremark and the surprise gem of the season
Fosse Meadows with its memorable water crossings, people losing their trainers in the deep mud.
As we pulled up, there was Malcolm carrying the South Derbyshire flag, that’s 7. One more and we have a team. ‘There’s Colin Mee, over there’, Gav pointed across the car park. Great a team we had and the rest was down to us. The course was short at 4.5 miles mainly in woodland, conditions were kind underfoot, one gradual climb and a couple of shallow water crossings. The pace was quick from the start and Chris Gunstone and Colin Mee were away leading Road Runners charge. The regular inter club rivalry and positional battles helped improve the clubs position overall we discovered when we had all finished.
Chris was first to cross the line in 63rd place only 2 seconds in front of Colin, their close run battles will no doubt continue into the road running series. Then came Andy Orme, another solid performance working his way up through the field to take 99th. Gavin Horton finished 110th, improving on his previous race position by 6 and closing the gap on Andy.
With half of our runners now finished all they could do was watch and wait. Luckily that wasn’t for very long as in came Adrian Middleton in 129th and Steve Fowler 130th both with season best positions and improving by over 10 places each on the previous race. Malcolm Moore closely followed in 136th despite feeling a little under the weather. All three were physically exhausted, gasping for breath, clutching their race tags, looking down the final 150m up hill sprint to the finish line for the last South Derbyshire vest.
There it was worn by Tony Phillips and crossing the line in 159th well done, all our team over the line. When the results came through we had done enough, South Derbyshire finished 5th in League 2, ahead of Ivanhoe by 8 points and only 4 points behind Huncote.
Thanks to all that took part this season, many memories shared by all. We look forward to the 2013/14 season and if you would like to try the XC races expect them to start around November..….just in time for the mud!
Contributed by Adrian Middleton