MenuMenu

A View From The Hill: English National Cross Country Championships 2025

Race Date: Saturday 22 February 2025

Mike Theobald, top coach at the track on Thursday evenings, first ran the National at Parliament Hill in the early sixties and was advising those racing on Saturday that they might want to have an easy session this week or even skip it altogether. When he learned that some had planned to do Parkrun in the morning he suggested that they had either not run  there before or had a very short memory. (Editor: My own logbook tells me that in 1993 I finished 1226th here out of 2156 in 56:20 when the distance was over 15km. The trauma must have been so great that I have no recollection of the event whatsoever). Parliament Hill Fields, with its vista of Central London as a backdrop, is an iconic location both loved and hated by cross country afficionados in equal measure. With a total of twenty three Steel City taking on the challenge, when Emily deduced that the uphill start was the easiest part of the course we get a feel for the event.

A view from the hill and a horror story for some. Panorama with the start of the Junior Men and one of the few stretches of green on the course. (Malcolm Baggaley)

Rob Byers sums up the experience well: The hardest cross-country event I’ve done and the tales of Parliament Hill certainly lived up to expectations. Much of the group had done Parkrun in the morning, but feeling apprehensive and perhaps a little keen, Caroline, Sarah and I opted for a short walk instead. Still up for debate if a shakeout, or lack thereof is the better approach.

Extremely nervous start to the race, 1700 odd club runners getting ready to charge up a muddy hill is not something I can ever get used to. Tribal chants even started as we were brought to the line. The race itself was interesting. While I’m told it wasn’t as wet as previous years, this year the endless mud had a particular depth and “stickiness” (Editor: that’s  London Clay) making it extremely taxing to slog through. Many, many shoes were lost to the depths. I sprinted up the first hill, following the advice of Seth to avoid the early bottleneck, which granted me a nice early position but meant I spent much of the first lap trying to get my skyrocketing heart rate back under control. Far more physical contact and swearing than I’m used to as we were often restricted to fighting over a narrow racing line although many opted to simply run outside the course boundaries where conditions were far more favourable.On the final lap nearing the 9km point, my feet slid from under me on a bend and I rolled through the mud, landing on my side. The guy running behind me unfortunately landed right on my ankle, spiking me, thankfully just missing my Achilles. It was just a flesh wound and I was able to continue and finish, currently very sore but hopefully ok?
Race wise – loads of fun, terrible facilities (6 odd smelly portaloos for a field of 5000?). Can’t say I’d recommend it to anyone other than the most battle-hardened XC enthusiast but your mileage may vary.

Visit to the Walk in Centre for Rob on Sunday to get his tetanus jab?

Neil Schofield gives a view from further back: It was horrendous and amazing in equal measure. The effort required to retrieve your planted foot from the quagmire sapped any spare energy – I finished the race like a dead man walking, runners streaming past me on either side! Neil toughed it out to finish sixth scorer – cross country is very much a team event. Commenting on the outright cheating at one stage Malcolm Baggaley saw forty plus competitors ‘straight lining it’ to find firmer ground when only he and one other actually kept to the course.

Pos Name Time
99 Sarah Thorne 00:35:28
114 Caroline Brock 00:36:08
269 Emily Green 00:40:05
418 Jacqui Herring 00:44:07
445 Laura Mella 00:44:35
516 Alice Taylor-Bennett 00:47:11
589 Laura Rangeley 00:49:02
649 Hannah Murton 00:51:28
657 Kate Scott 00:51:45
756 Karen Clark 00:57:45
783 Carol Beattie 01:01:17
824 Hannah Wright 01:15:23

Champion: Jessica Gibbon (Reading AC) 29:19 with first team Leeds City AC (89 points). With four to score, Steel City were a fine 27th (900 points) of 82 complete teams. 830 Senior Women, the last of which finished in 1:23:59

“At last some mud declared” Caroline Brock but it it didn’t stop Sarah Thorne being the first Steel City home.

Senior Men 12km

Pos Name Time
409 Robert Byers 00:55:54
579 Seth Kirby 00:59:02
758 Naeem Stevens 01:01:53
1180 Timothy Erskine 01:09:19
1244 Malcolm Baggaley 01:11:30
1317 Neil Schofield 01:12:45
1339 Ian Stinson 01:13:26
1415 Jim Rangeley 01:15:43
1440 Nick Burns 01:16:22
1464 Ben Baxendale 01:16:49
1723 Mick Brogan 01:31:58

Champion: Richard Slade (Chiltern) 43:52, first team was Bristol and West AC (115 points). With six to score, Steel City were the top South Yorkshire Club finishing in 76th position (5497 points) of 112 complete teams. 1781 Senior Men finished, the last of which recorded a time of 2:00:17.

Link to the full results:  English National 2025

A feature of this years event was the Queen and King of the Mountain, an award for the first senior athletes to reach the top of the hill. What actually happened was that, in each case, first to the top was won by someone who just went flat out for that first 400m, celebrated, blew up and then just dropped back and finished well down the field. Team captains may not be particularly pleased.

Not a pretty sight. How do you clean your spikes?

Link to some amazing official photographs: Graham Smith Photography

 

Post Views: 855
scroll to top