Oh Dracula comes from Transylvania, Stevie Nicks books about kleptomania, Johnny looked out of his bedroom window and shouted to his mum “Fred Titmus!”

McCain UK Cross Challenge Series (inc European Trials)

Top class field in the men’s race on Saturday, a real who’s who of distance running. The conditions were a bit windy but there were that many in the race I didn’t notice the wind until the field spread out later on. I planned to run this as a tempo, sticking to 6:30 and incorporating it into a longish run of about 13 miles. I got to the event at around 13:00 and because of the junior/ladies races before the men’s event, it was chokka block. I couldn’t walk 10 foot without tripping over either someone I knew or a top class distance runner. Obviously I wont bore you with names but I did see LRB’s Marc Jacques getting his hangover excuses in early ?

The course itself was three laps of around 2miles, approx 9.8k in total. Over 500 runners made the start akin to the charge of Gettysburg, it was a slight downhill and it seemed I hadn’t got 200 metres before the leading pack were turning the first corner. There are no hills in Sefton Park, thought the terrain is undulating and all the lads who’d ran this in the past said it was ankle deep in mud and although flat, really taxing on the legs as it was non-stop churn.

I stuck to my guns and settled into a 6:30ish pace. The loops had plenty of tight turns but in general the surface was fine, to use a racing parlance, the going was good to soft. It did cross my mind to pick up the pace but I really had nothing to gain by blasting around this course. No team prize and no PB, just a chance to get a good a scalp or two. Now, I’m not very good on the xc, something to do with being a heel striker so I decided against killing myself, preferring to save it for Arrowe Park 04/12.

Sticking at 6:30, I gradually worked my way thought the field, bizarrely only two runners passed me for the whole race and both of them were inside the last ¼ mile. The main event itself sounded like a right ding dong. The lead seemed to swap places 5 times in as many minutes, Andy Vernon, the king of this event in recent years took the lead right at the death in a thrilling finish. I had tipped Steve Vernon to win but the conditions were against the Stockport man, he finished 7th. I thought the conditions would’ve been better suited to the speedy road/track men but this wasn’t altogether true. I think a combo of massive field and twists/turns meant that if you weren’t in that leading group for the 1st corner, you were pretty much out of the hunt.

So, a great spectacle and day out, PLS had a great turn out and I managed to achieve my objectives of getting a longish run in and a nice tempo for the race itself (6:27 average – 39:47 for the race). I’d ‘only’ ran 49:5 miles for the week but I had four quality runs under my belt. Looking forward to Arrowe Park now, the last chance saloon as far as PLS xc mens team is concerned, fingers crossed we get the numbers out Sunday!