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This major cross-country meeting returned to one of its more regular venues, and probably one of the toughest courses in the country, for this year's championship. The weather was fine but typically the course was very muddy in places. With athletes representing clubs from the 19 Counties across the South from Cornwall to Kent and up to Norfolk the competition was up to its usual high standard.
A number of Chiltern Harriers young athletes took part but pride of place goes to the U13 Boys team which created history for the Club by becoming their first ever winning team at these championships.
Although still suffering the effects of a very bad cough first year Michael Goddard led the team bravely from the front finishing in 11th place. Jack Dutton, having his best run so far, crossed the line immediately behind in 12th and just a further 4 seconds behind was Dan Barraclough in 18th position. The next one home was 11 year old Andrew Stenning, a year 6 boy from Chalfont St Peter Middle School, who completed the scoring team with an outstanding performance from such a young athlete to finish in 33rd place. Although these 4 completed the scoring team the other four team members produced runs of equal importance with George Gillingwater (61st), 11 year old Joe Cochrane (65th) a year 6 boy at St Josephs School in Chalfont St Peter, 11 year old James McCarthy (120th) a year 6 boy at The Beacon School, and Peter Illingworth (125th) . There were 216 finishers in the 3k race. The team performance was so good that victory was by a huge margin with the Harriers youngsters scoring 74pts followed by Bedford & County 130pts and the 2007 champions Tonbridge in 3rd place with 144pts. Aldershot, Farnham & District is currently the strongest cross-country running club for young athletes in the UK and they won all the other team categories both male and female in the U13, U15 and U17 age groups.
Club Coach Gary Howells is keen to point to the school links the Harriers have established with Chalfont St Peter Middle School and Elangeni Middle School, Amersham as a key factor in the success the club is having with the U13 and U11 age groups, both male and female. The leading 4 scorers above are from the two schools. The success of the links is also shown in the Local Middle Schools cross-country series of races not only for the two schools involved but with other young athletes from the Chiltern District who have joined Chiltern Harriers AC.
Ellie Jones, a first year in the U13 age group, was taking part in the biggest race of her young career so far. She ran very well throughout to finish 76th out of 212 and finished well ahead of 4 girls who beat her in the recent County Champs race where she was 8th.
In the U15 Boys 4500 metre race Alex Watson produced a solid performance to finish in 58th place out of 242 finishers. Hugh Beedell finished in 211th place but teammate Dan Loach had to pull out of the race after being spiked and suffering a fall.
The U17 Men's 6k race gave first year Alex Shelley the opportunity to test his fitness after returning from injury caused by growing problems. With a good 6 week block of training under his belt he was determined to complete his first race since October. Running to a plan where he was to run more strongly through the second half of the race he finished a very creditable 72nd out of 167 finishers just ahead of the Bucks County champion from 3 weeks ago.
Laura Butt had a very good run in the Senior Women's 8k race finishing 48th out of 326 finishers with Barbara Ralph 172nd and Fiona Calder 319th. In the Senior Men's gruelling 15k race Ian Lawson (446th), John Taylor (731st) and Trevor Brawn (787th) were the club's three finishers out of 832.
Gary Howells
Team Manager/Coach
Chiltern Harriers AC