More cross country

Ahhhhhh, cross country racing. I'm not sure if I love or hate you, today was a bit of both. It was cold, muddy, hilly, muddy, did I mention muddy? Nearly lost my left shoe, walked way too much, slid around like I was a drifting extra in Fast and the Furious, flew down the hills like a bowling ball headed for the gutter, and gasped like a fish flopping about just out of reach of the water. Oh did I mention the mud?????

Before the mud and before the sun disappeared

And we are off! 

Suffering, attempting to sprint for the finish line

stats are a bit meh

yep, muddy. Soaked through my shoes and socks

Water hose and newspaper:  xc runner's necessities 

Unfortunately we were one female short of fielding a team for today but the men were well represented and I think they all had great races. Having that camaraderie and support is AWESOME, especially when you are struggling to keep trying to go UP what amounted to be a slide made of mud (thanks again guys!) . The coffee provided by one of the members afterwards was soooooooo good as were the biscuits (the cake was almost gone by the time I finished and I was heaving too much to grab a piece of it). Today was also the other lady's first ever cross country race and she did fantastic, think she's hooked as well now :-).  

Run Britain had a great article this evening about cross country racing. I had to chuckle about the "event" style races and how much they cost. Loving the fact that I get to do what is essentially the same thing several times a year for the £20 annual club membership fee, I'm not much of a medal or t-shirt collector anyways so not getting them isn't a big deal for me.