NESS XC Race 2 – Results

26 November 2023 - By Jodee Mayer

The Black and Gold army was out in force again today – a total of  47 runners and 7 supporters made the journey to Gosfield School (and then patiently waited in the car park queue) to eat a range of black and gold sweet treats to mark this week’s bake off theme of 40th birthday! Thanks to our bakers – Claudia, Fiona, James Attenborough, Lysia, and Stephen Sawyer!

Thanks also to Clive Smith for volunteering to score with me – much appreciated!

The weather was kind – a dry, albeit cold, day for the second race in the NESS XC league, and the toilets were so comfy Mark Austin decided to stay in them to keep warm until the photo call up!

Mick Conroy, having made the trek to Gosfield despite being on call, was called to work and just missed the start of the race (and will now screw his spikes in beforehand!) – but hung around to support the rest of the runners. Battling illness, Kerry bravely took to the start line but unfortunately had to stop, which meant 45 runners completed the course – which I am informed was missing the water feature of last year – and we had a strong WRC finish funnel support crew!

We had the most runners on the course again – as we walked over to the start line, Clive, the purse strings always on his mind, had a slightly different reaction to this than me…

Club Awards

The Peter Whiticker and Brian Wiley trophies are awarded to the first male and first female across the line at the Halstead race each year.

The 2023 recipients are Will Radley and Claudia Baba  – congratulations both!

Results

Our men stormed home in 1st today, with the women putting in a strong performance to finish 5th. A special mention to Fiona who, having overtaken a fellow WRC runner, knew she was our 4th scorer and put in an incredible run to finish 45th.

Ladies	5th
Men	1st
Overall league position	3rd

For those interested in the finer details:

The current league points totals have been queried, however, by my calculations we have leapfrogged Gt Bentley into 4th place!!! Great work WRC!

The intraclub champs

The no-show penalties really played their part today – the Woodies stormed to victory with no missing runners; this has moved them up to 2nd place in the club champs!

Average points per race: 

*NB – The Winnies have had one club champs retiree – Rupert decided going on his honeymoon to Sri Lanka was more important than running XC…

Race Rankings

Overall Rankings

We are looking forward to seeing everyone on Sunday 10th December in Colchester for our 3rd NESS race!

Jodee