Report by Sam Harper
54 Croft Runners took part in the first race of the Summer League, hosted by Ludlow Runners at Berrington Hall.
This could have been a home race being in close proximity to quite a few members of the club – I passed Mark doing a warm up from home and Leanne and Dave and Sonia George chose to ride their bikes. What a beautiful evening for it – glorious sunshine, but not too hot and no significant rain for a while lead to near perfect running conditions.
Berrington Hall is a glorious setting for a race – and a perfect background for the group photo – with so many Croft Runners it was hard to fit everyone in!
In my opinion the course was perfect for a summer league race – 2 laps, which meant juniors could be included, although to my knowledge only one runner, Callum Morris from Builth did. There was just the right amount of ‘undulation’ although some of the uphills were tough, there was nothing too strenuous and it was a bit of a shame the downhills weren’t as good as they could have been due to a bit of rutted ground and molehills.
With so many Croft runners it is hard to give a shout out to individuals – but so good to have such high numbers of sky blue vests and it really was a fantastic atmosphere, we had a few supporters dotted around the course to make sure we were pushed all the way round!
I can only give the perspective from the back half of the race, but it looks from the results and the photos that the sky blue boys were leading the field from the beginning. First accross the line was awarded to Robin Woods of Builth and District, but it must have been very close as Matt finished in second with the same time. Mark and Gareth finished in 4th and 5th with the same time of 28.11 too, completing the male half of Croft first team. Hannah was first Croft lady across the line in 33.46, third lady overall behind Donna Morris of Builth and Claire Thomas of Ludlow. Kelly was 10th lady, 36.03 and Katie Ayres 11th 36.26 – completing the Croft A team to take us into second place. Due to an ammendement with the results, it looks like it is points rather than time which is going to determine the team postiongs, so currently Croft are 23 points behind first place Builth, but when looking at the time for both teams it was incredibly close – only 13 seconds in it!
Croft were quite clearly the winners in the numbers of teams – 8 altogether, with the second team of Eric, Aiden, Sam, Thea, Mia and Jo T being the fourth placed team.
A fantastic evening for Croft and lets keep our fingers crossed that we can have such fantastic turnouts and results at all of the Summer League races. The next one is June 22nd at Fforest Fields.
Results can be found here – Teams, individuals, PDF on ready,set,go website.
Lots of photos on facebook, please find selection below:
Thanks to Paul Baskeyfield for the photos below
