Cross Country Hatred: Earthworms, Mountains & AWESOME Spectating

Rain is pelting down and our feet are sinking into the already sodden grass. Huddled in the Club tent, we try to stop the worms getting into our bags. Actual wriggly worms. And as we’re all wearing spiked running shoes, it’s going to be worm-kebab time when we start running on the mushy grass. Poor Jim. 

Northbrook post-race legs. Spoiler: We all survived.

However it’s not all earthworm-death and torrential rain, I get some good news too. 

The race is 4 miles long, not the 5 miles I’d thought. So just once around the fields, a bit of a trot up a hill and then a cup of coffee. It’s sounding pretty good. Apart from the rain. And the worms. And the having-to-run.  

There had better be cake afterwards. 

Waiting until the last minute due to the downpour, I miss my warm-up. I’ll be fine. I’m sure I’ll be fine. It has to be better to warm up on the run, than be out in that freezing rain? In fact, running in that would be more likely to be a ‘cool down’ rather than a ‘warm up, right’? Huddling in a nice warm tent is much more sensible, I tell myself. I ignore the little voice that tells me ‘You realise you’re talking crap, right?’

It’s time.

The girls all pour out of the tiny Northbrook gazebo like clowns out of a tiny car. The men’s race is half an hour later so they’re staying in the warm and dry. I don’t blame them. I’d stay in the tent too. If someone removed the worms for me that is.  

It’s nice though at the start. Despite the rain. There is a sea of green and gold sunburst vests. The feeling of camaraderie makes me forget, just for a moment, that very soon I’ll be running around a field, covered in mud and feeling like hell. 

The girls at the front in their tiny pants and crop tops, bend forward for a good start, the ones in the middle including me, try to coordinate our starts so we don’t get mown down by the over-enthusiastic girls behind us. The girls at the back put on their best ‘mowing down the girls in front’ faces. We all look serious and dedicated and as though our very lives depend on getting a good start.

Then the gun goes off and the entire crowd of ladies do a very girly “Oooh!”. It would have been highly amusing if I wasn’t running for my life, trying to avoid being trampled into the mud by the girls behind me wearing spiked shoes. 

The whole field rushes past me. Like the WHOLE field. Did I miss some sort of energy drink given out at the start? Maybe there’s something really special at the end? Maybe they’re giving out free trainers to the first 50 finishers or something. Or maybe it’s just the thought of finishing quickly and being able to stop running through ankle deep mud. 

I try to run a bit faster but my legs aren’t having any of it.

Picture by the lovely Sarah McNaney

I try to think of excuses. My legs are tired from bike ride yesterday. My spikes aren’t spiky enough. Maybe I’m ill. (Tries a fake cough). Maybe they’re all going too fast and then I can overtake them all at the end. I didn’t warm up because it’s raining. Also I’m not wearing clothes that make me look as though I’ve forgotten my PE kit and am being made to run in my pants and vest. Everyone knows that crop top and pants are the best thing to race cross country in ...  

Ah crap. I’m just going to have to get on with it. *Puff, pant.* This SUCKS.

How can I enjoy trail running, but not cross country? Maybe it’s the spikes. I must be allergic to spiky shoes. That’s it. That must be what’s slowing me down so much as well. Stupid spikes. 

This course is fairly flat, although I am slightly suspicious of the fact that we are running towards Beacon Hill. Beacon Hill which has its own name and is so stupidly steep we have run hill repeats up it. And it has a freaking massive beacon up the top. I can remember Lord of the Rings. You remember that MASSIVE mountain the hobbits had to run up to light the beacon? It was EXACTLY like that. But without the hobbits. 

But I overtook a few people going up the hill. Ha ha! I thought. My hill reps here in the past have helped! I am like Queen of the Hill! I bounded up the hill, wearing my imaginary crown shooting scornful looks at everyone else. I am WINNING at running up hills! 

But the girls I was overtaking? They knew something I didn’t know. They knew we had to go up Beacon Hill TWICE. 

The second time? I wasn’t overtaking anyone. Queen of the Hill? More like Over the Hill. I plodded up, doing what can only be calling ‘running’ by the generous minded. 

I dragged myself around the field, mud up my legs, earthworm murder under my shoes and despair in my heart. Why are the miles taking so long to go? I check my Garmin ... how can I ONLY have gone that far? I’ve got MILES to go before I finish. 

Run ... Run ... Run ... 

I check my Garmin again. 0.06miles have gone past since I last checked it. Oh this is rubbish. At this rate I’ll be here ALL day. AND there isn’t even a medal at the end. There had better be cake or I’m going to be REALLY grumpy. GrumpIER. 

Then the ground disappears.

There’s a ditch. A massive ditch. Filled with mud. The taller women in front are jumping it. Some are landing in it. This doesn’t bode well for a vertically-challenged girl like me. I summon up my best gazelle-like leap and throw my arms out at the same time, pushing the girl over next to me. 

Whoops.

I land on the other side of the ditch and a quick glance shows me, that luckily my accidental push-ee made it over too. Phew. I probably wouldn’t have waded back in to save her but I WOULD have shouted an apology. I’m thoughtful like that. 

Picture by the lovely Sarah McNaney

Run up the hill and back onto the trails and there’s slippery mud everywhere. It’s like ice skating, but dirtier. My spikes are thoroughly clogged up and I can’t claim the grace of Bambi-on-Ice but I manage Bog-Monster-Emerging-From-Toilet. It’s carnage, people are slipping all over the place, my legs are skating around but I manage to avoid the one thing I’m most scared of in cross-country ... stepping on my own foot in spiked shoes. I don’t even get trodden on by anyone else’s spiked shoes.

Am obviously over-achiever. 

We emerge from the slippery mud and back onto the grass and leaves of the playing fields. We circle the field. This is promising. This is towards the finish! ... And past the finish. 

Stupid cross country. 

And guess what. Just to top off the muddy, mucky horror, we get a 2^nd go at the ditch jump. 

2 goals: Don’t fall in. Don’t fall in. 

I can’t quite manage my gazelle-leap of before, making do with a cat-startled-by-hoover jump but am grateful not to have ended up in the dirt soup. I’m on the last muddy, grassy bit now, just one more corner and it’s the final straight. It’s not been my race and my legs – and heart – just haven’t enjoyed it.

But it’s nearly done and ... hang on! The girl I’ve been leapfrogging with the whole time has just put on a burst of speed to try and overtake me in a sprint finish! Can’t have that! My legs, thoroughly unimpressed at the whole cross country thing, decide that they DO have something left and whisk me along to the finish chute ... a hair ahead. I hope it’s not ditch-jump-pushed-girl or she is going to beat me to DEATH with the finish token at this final injustice. 

Northbrook ladies. I'm on the far right. (Pic source unknown)

I am relieved to be finished, but am disappointed with how I’ve done. I UNDERSTAND that I can’t be good at things I haven’t trained for. But I don’t have to LIKE it. 

I’ve trained for ultras this year. This involves running really, really slowly, eating snacks and by staying entertained by bushes. And not murdering chickens. I can’t expect to go from that to running like a mud-crazy-cheetah in spiky shoes. They’re opposite things but with running.

Like expecting to be good at bobsleigh because you’ve practised sitting.

I know I can’t EXPECT to be good. But I want to be. Dammit, Running Gods!!! (Howled)

So I take my sulky self and my over-expectations-of-cross-country-running over to spectate the mens’ race. Now this is where cross country makes up for all previous ills. This made up for the rain. This made up for the earthworms. This even made up for running up Massive-Stupid-Mountain-Beacon-Hill twice.

It was carnage.

There were men falling over in the ditch. There were men sliding into the ditch on their bottoms. There was even one poor man who lost his shoe in the ditch.

In fact, I felt so sorry for him, I videoed it. And I definitely don’t watch it when I’m sad just to laugh at this poor man and his hopeless eyes as he searches or his missing shoe.

Cross country running to watch this?

TOTALLY WORTH IT. 

Bleeding Eyeballs & Strawberry Shoelaces: English National Cross Country Relays Race Report

I wasn’t sure I was doing this right. It would be a 2 hour drive to Mansfield, for a run that would last 15 minutes. Not sure that’s the right way round. However, I’d been told there was cake so I was in.

I’d run this race before and I had vague remembrances of mud, elbows and swearing that I would never do it again. I dismissed it. My memory is unreliable. I LIKE running. Besides it’s only 3km and that’ll take me a few minutes then I can go and find this cake that I’ve been promised.

I was a bit concerned that I was in the wrong team. I liked my team mates but I was definitely the weak link in this relay. Emily was the club’s cross country star and one of their top ladies and was more than capable of a brilliant sub 18 time on a hilly 5k course. And Angela Copson who held multiple running WORLD RECORDS!. And me. Me who falls into ditches, is unreliable on any distance less than about 5 miles (and even then I stop to take pictures of alpacas) and who has done precisely 3 cross country races in her life. Including the one where I was 13 and gave up after ½ a mile. Although in my defence I started running again once I’d scored a sweetie off the marshal.   

We arrived in a field full of young people in running shorts and craggy old men with white hair and thick coats. The clatter of spikes, the queues for the portaloos and the sound of a horn signalling the start of a race. There was mud, wind, rain and enthusiasm. We moved through the field, a colourful mess of team tents, club colours and flags and finally found the team tent in the usual chaos of bags, unattended trainers and under 17s. And 2 giant boxes of strawberry shoelace sweeties. Brilliant.

Strawberry shoelaces Source

The weather was undecided so I wasn’t sure which shoes to go for so had brought my Salomon Crossfire 3 and New Balance spikes although it was the first time I’d raced in these. I asked the more experienced runners what they’d recommend and the result was unanimous – spikes.  

My nervous energy was keeping me warm as I jittered from one foot to the other. Emily was on the first leg of the relay and was running the first 3km. We ran a warm-up together and decided to run the lower half of the circuit. We got just to the open part by the lake when the skies opened. It was the throw-a-bucket type rain which meant you were drenched within 30 seconds. Oh well. At least if I fell in one of the bogs I’d already be wet.

Walked up to the starting pens with Angela and we caught sight of Emily waiting to go. We waved and bellowed to wish her luck. They called them all through onto the field, the gun fired and they were off in a jostle of elbows, spikes and flying mud.

Ladies at English National Cross Country Relays Source

The marshal, weathered and ancient called the 2^nd leg through and told us we’d hear our team mate’s number being called over the tannoy as they came up the field. There was no baton or anything like that. Your teammate finished on one side of a barrier and you set off on the other. No cross over at all. And what the marshal meant when he said you’d hear it on the tannoy was “The tannoy doesn’t work but if you’re lucky you might hear it muttered.”

I had 2 seconds warning of Emily coming in. Checked it was her then dashed through the hordes of girls in front of the line and pegged it across the line.

Run as fast as I can while trying to keep pace maintainable. Overtaken by the first person. Crap. Don’t try to catch them now, pick them up near the end when they tire. Just keep running. Check Garmin – am running at 5:56 min/miles. Crap, can’t run at 5:56 min/miles. Passed by second girl. Crap crap. Splosh through a boggy muddy bit. Wet feet. Just keep running. Ooh into the woods. More mud. Round the duck pond. Where are the ducks? Mud! Argh! More people coming!! Just run Sarah! Don’t let Emily and Angela down! Argh! More mud. Stupid wrong spikes don’t have much grip and feet are doing spinning roadrunner impression. Up the hill. Puff, pant. Ooh downhill. Argh slippy leaves. Uphill. More woods. Eyesight is actually going blurry. Am running as hard as I can in these conditions and with roadrunner spinning feet. Just keep running (to tune of Just Keep Swimming in Finding Nemo) just keep running. Ok, mustn’t kill self by going too hard now and fading at end but have to keep pushing. Out of the woods. Hooray!! Someone with a tannoy shouts “Go on Rugby & Northampton”. Feels as though I am running in slow motion but going fast as I can. Stupid uphills. Stupid running. Push push. Just keep running. Stupid grass. More woods. Stupid woods. And downhill!! Stupid downhill. Legs hurt and it feels as though eyeballs are bleeding. Just keep running and final uphill. Girl just in front. Must overtake her. Stupid slippy hill. Push push and there’s the finish!! Phew! Can sit down.

Sit down. Check eyeballs. Relieved to find not in actual fact bleeding. Legs appear intact despite what senses are telling me. Stupid short distances. Stupid cross country. And it was raining.        

Cheered in Angela and got back to Rugby & Northampton tent. Which wasn’t there. It had been taken down in my absence and some git had eaten all the strawberry shoelaces.

Walked back to the car and stopped at the stall to buy a ‘English National Cross Country Relays’ hooded sweatshirt ... which was now only available in 14 – 15 years. Sigh.

Got to the car and finally started getting feeling back in my hands. My face returned to a normal colour and my vision started coming back. 

Emily turned to me in the car: “How did you find that?”

“Brilliant.” I said. “When can I do that again?”

RESULTS: 51^st club

0:37:53.80 Rugby & Northampton AC

0:11:03.10 Emily

0:13:27.45  Sarah

0:13:23.25  Angela

I'm All Spiky!!

Look what I got!! Swanky, right? 

However, I told a work friend about my new running spikes only to be met with a raised eyebrow and a sarcastic comment: “Really? With the amount you fall over?” Charming. Anyone would think I’m completely unable to stand upright.

He then followed this up with “You’ll do yourself a serious injury.” I wouldn’t mind but this is a friend I’ve run with before. And while there may have been a small amount of falling over. Ok. A LOT of falling over but this was due ENTIRELY to the fact I was wearing inappropriate footwear (road trainers during a particularly muddy cross country run). Something I’d hope to rectify with the purchase of the spikes.

For his peace of mind, I advised that I was planning on driving to a remote location and running around a field in circles until I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to be deemed a hazard. To others. I was still pretty confident I’d still be able to damage myself with the old tried-and-tested favourites: ‘stand on own feet and puncture toes’ and ‘get legs tangled while navigating tricky section and take chunk out of own calf.’ And not forgetting the good old ‘stand on own fingers while trying to tie laces’. 

I was also slightly confused as to the difference between track spikes and cross country spikes. I had a quick look online. Actually ... there didn’t seem to be a lot of difference. I used to have to run cross country at school in my hockey boots. It was muddy, miserable and cold. When I was about 13 I ended up in one of the school cross country runs once because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t realise what I’d been signed up for. 

We turned up to a posh school with all of these other girls in their special running shoes while I stood there in my hockey boots wondering what on earth was going on. The gun went off and I sprinted about ¼ mile up a road with the all the other girls in a rush and then worn out, I went and stood next to a marshal who gave me one of his sweets. I then got bored watching everyone else so went back out and started overtaking as many people as I could finally finishing off 15^th out of 60^th. Very average. But I got a sweetie out of it so it wasn’t a complete loss. 

It must have put me off running though as I didn’t do any again until I was 29 when I started running on a treadmill ... but that is a whole other story ...