West Yorkshire League XC Halifax

The opening cross country of the season began with the West Yorkshire League at Roils Head, Halifax.

Previous events at this course had told us it wasn't a place to be in adverse weather conditions being situated on exposed moorland. Yet again we weren't to be disappointed with a very strong wind whipping across the course.

The Spen men were hopeful of finishing a team as a big effort had been made to get as many people as possible pre entered. Something which had not happened for the last few seasons.

On the day 7 runners turned up, so barring a disaster a team finish was going to happen.

The sun was shining as the race started. It was to be a 4 lapper, so as long as you could count there should have been no problems!!

On his first outing in a senior XC Ryan Dransfield got off to a quick start, time would tell if his stamina would hold out or not. He was followed not far behind by 'race machine' Kevin Ogden, still nursing a back injury and not on his favourite surface. The other team members - Chris Jones, Jeff Hornby, Edward Wilkinson, Gerard Skippings, Dean Pearce ( the last two also making their debut at XC ) all decided on a more conservative start.

As the race progressed Kevin slowly hauled in Ryan as his stamina began to fade. From his usual steady start Jeff made progress throughout the race. Chris Jones suffering from a knee injury was going to be in for a long hard afternoon as a shake of the head at the end of lap one clearly indicated he wasn't going to have one of his best races.

Gerard and Dean were running good solid races, backed up by Edward who was still recovering from a nasty chest cold.

There was drama at the end of the race when leading by a substancial margin, Andrew Pearson missed the turn into the finish and ended up doing five laps instead of four. Some how he has been awarded provisonal first place even though he never completed the correct course or passed through the finish - comments please.

Final Spen positions were :

Kevin Ogden 65th 35:00
Ryan Dransfield 73rd 35:36
Jeff Hornby 117th 37:35
Gerard Skippings 127th 38:21
Chris Jones 156th 40:09
Dean Pearce 161st 40:37
Edward Wilkinson 182nd 44:48

194 Finishers

Team Position 14th

Overall a promising start to the season with more runners being able to participate in the next race the future is begining to look a little more rosey. thanks to all who took part.