FOR the majority of athletes from Dudley Kingswinford, last Saturday marked the end of a busy cross-country season with their final run round muddy fields at the National Cross Country Championships at Donington Park.

With the cream of the cross county crop heading for the Leicestershire venue, this was like a cup final for the blue hoops and an opportunity to rub shoulders, albeit briefly, with international athletes, as this would be a whole different game to their usual West Mids League and Birmingham League Division Three outings.

The course was designed to benefit both runners and spectators alike with multiple laps of testing, undulating and muddy fields, with the ladies setting off over an 8k distance 40 minutes ahead of the men, who covered 12k.

With the first four finishers to count in the ladies team standings, Lynn Sprague was first home for DK in 453rd in 44.15, Carol Fisher placed 541st in 46.48, Hannah McGuire finished in 47.14 to take 547th place and Sarah Cox was 583rd in 48.29 to place the club 75th overall of the 84th clubs competing. Sally McConville was 601st in 49.06 and Sarah Krivosic finished in 1.01.18 in 725th.

In the Senior Men’s race, the blue hoops lined up in the same starting pen as defending champion Charlie Hulson from Sale Harriers but were soon left behind as the gun fired, prompting the cavalry charge to the first bend. Ben Foster was first back in 300th place in 50.26, Stuart Perkins had a fantastic run to place 625th in 55.26, James Wright was 686th in 56.12 despite carrying an injury, Simon Hughes was 814th in 57.45 just holding off a fast finishing Dave Norman in 818th in 57.47, with Daren Thompson completing the A team scorers in 59.15 just ahead of Mark Homer, who placed 966th in 59.47. Andy Sprague was 1156th in 1.02.38, Mark Judge 1297th in 1.04.58, Graham Wildgoose 1366th in 1.06.21, Stephen Parr 1474th in 1.09.09, Pete Krivosic 1674th in 1.20.18 and Matthew Harker finished in 1.22.00 in 1689th out of a total field of 1730 runners. As a club the men’s team finished 61st out of 123 teams.

A day later and back on tarmac, there were plenty of hoops on show for the Action Heart 5.

Darran Bishop was first back in 22nd place in 31.39, Sergej Ljubovnikov was 45th in 35.20, Darren Marklew 70th in 37.09, Roger Beddard 71st in 37.10, John Andrews 83rd in 37.44, Tom Cobb 122nd in 40.22 and Rory Campbell was 159th in 42.10. Sally McConville finished in 43.31, Jane Campbell 44.13, John Glover 45.31, Nick Murphy 45.31, Zoe Marklew 47.05, Tracey Nicholls 50.06, John Gould 50.47, Jeremy Cobb 52.33 1nd Susan Hughes 1.01.18.