Hot on the heels of the Northern Cross Country relays was the ECCA National cross country relays, held at Berry Hill Park in Mansfield, which has hosted the event since 1989. After having to withdraw last year due to injuries, this time the U15 boys’ team of William Delamere, Eddy Clark and Caleb Still were all at full fitness and of the 5 relays they’ve competed in over the last couple of months, this was by far their best race.
The course at Berry Hill Park is very much up and down, although nothing on the scale of Graves Park 2 weeks ago. The ground was surprisingly firm for the start of November with little in the way of mud and even by the U15 Boys’ race, which was the 8th of the programme, it hadn’t cut up at all making for some very fast running. Will was on the opening leg as has been the case in the previous 4 relays and quickly established himself in the front group with his closest opposition mostly being the same boys from the England Road Relays 4 weeks ago. As we’ve come to expect from him, his 2km leg was absolutely solid and he passed over to Eddy in 5th position.
Eddy had a great run on the 2nd leg, looking very strong throughout. Over his 2km the positions changed regularly and while the front 3 of Cambridge & Coleridge, Herne Hill and Dacorum were some way ahead, a real scrap was on for 4th-8th position. In a close finish with Woodford Green and Hallamshire he passed onto Caleb in 6th position but he was very quickly back past Woodford Green and right on the shoulder of Hallamshire after only 200m or so. After another 300m he made his move and all the way through the woods he opened up a sizeable gap in 4th and made some ground up on Dacorum in 3rd. Coming into the finish he held off a late surge from Hallamshire and brought the team home in 4th out of 69 complete teams to finish, a superb result against the best teams from around the country. In addition, Caleb had run the quickest anchor leg time and the 5th quickest time overall out of 234 athletes, while Will’s opening leg time was the 8th quickest overall.
A huge well done to all 3 boys over the series of autumn relays; gold at the North West and Northern Road Relays, 4th at the England Road Relays, silver at the Northern XC Relays and 4th here is a brilliant set of results that they can all be rightly proud of. I know we’ll be seeing them at all of them next year too in the U17 races.
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