Race report by Karen:
Saturday afternoon was the first cross country race of the season in the South East Lancashire Cross Country League. The weather was sunny and reasonably warm, as is often the case for the October race.
Louise and I were representing the Lostock women and we made our way to the start line ready to take on the three lap course. Louise was raring to go and I was just hoping to survive the three laps! The gun fired and everyone took off down the hill for the usual very fast start. I lost sight of Louise fairly quickly as she took off strongly and I was taking it slowly at the back of the pack.
The 1.5 mile lap was slightly undulating with the slog back up the hill at the end of each lap. There was a little mud here and there around the course but nothing that couldn’t be avoided.
The marshals were all very encouraging and I felt like I was starting to know them all very well by the time I was on my third lap!
It was a relief to get up the hill for the third time and cross the finish line. Louise had already finished a long way in front of me after a great race. The men’s race had already started and so together we scouted into the sun for green vests coming up the hill and saw Paul, Mark, James Greg and Andy come through from their first lap, all looking good.
Not sure how the men felt afterwards as I couldn’t stay to watch them finish, but I’m sure they all had a great time 😁
From a stats pov, the women’s race was 4.5 miles, the men did 5.5 miles, with the delights of a longer lap x 3 and a bonus first mini lap which was basically down and back up the hill, lucky them!
Looking forward to the next race in November!
