Bertie, Callum and Ellie ran at the UK Inter Counties Cross Country
Well done to Callum, Bertie and Ellie who ran at the UK Inter Counties Cross Country last weekend.
Ellie Watts ran in the u13s girls, she had a bit of nightmare losing one of her spikes in the mud and still finished.
Bertire’s report:
I ran for Yorkshire on Saturday in the UK Inter Counties X country Championships. I ran this last year so I knew that there would be a lot of fantastic athletes there, especially as it was also the world XC trials this year. I had a good run and came 32nd, racing against people a year older than me and I also managed to get on the Sky cameras quite a lot. It was a really good day and hopefully next year I can do even better. I was the 2nd Yorkshire athlete behind Gordon Benson who qualified for the GB team for the World XC champs. To top it off we got the team bronze medal.
Callum’s report:
On the 5th of January this year I went to the Yorkshire Cross Country Championships as a sole representative of the club in my age group. I came 6th in my race on a course that suited me well. By coming 6th I was asked to represent Yorkshire at the Inter Counties Cross Country on the 9th of March. I couldn’t believe I was about to get the chance to represent Yorkshire but I had to wait 2 months. Within these 2 months I got some decent training in but my results were a bit all over the place for instance I over trained in the week leading up to South Yorkshire schools which I did not get on the team for English Schools. I also had a disappointing run at the Northerns placing 39th yet people I am capable of beating came 14th, yet I went to the Nationals and came 32nd so it was a roller coaster ride mentally leading up to the race, also with my rivals doing well in these races it also played a big part of my preparation mentally.
Race day came and I had mixed emotions.
On one hand I was over the moon when I was handed the Yorkshire vest but on the other hand it was very daunting for me. This was my first time ever at a competition this big (It is a lot different pre race thoughts than when I ran the fun runs last year, its a different ball game altogether.) The time had come we got called up to the start line with 30 seconds to go.
Within those 30 seconds to go that is where I believed to have lost it. The amount of negative and nervous thoughts going through my shaking body was energy sapping. I ended up having a bad run coming in last for Yorkshire (8th) and 98th individually. I was very disappointed by this for the rest of the day.
The day after I started to come to terms with what had happened the day before and started to see some positives, the main one was looking at the Yorkshire vest on the washing line and thinking that 2 years ago I pulled out of the chance to get that vest because of mental issues and look where I am now, if I got over that then I can get over the issue of the mentality for bigger events. I am looking to the transaction phase now coming off the endurance work and focusing on speed for the track and letting my body recover by taking 9 days off over Easter and coming back after to that to put the hard work in that and hopefully get some new huge Pb’s.
Thanks for reading good luck to everybody this track season what ever event you do, also good look to Dean Watson who is representing GB for Triathlon and Bertie Houghton running at English schools XC