At the start of February, members of FXU Athletics travelled up to the BUCS Cross Country Championships at Horsenden Hill. Despite the relatively dry weather over the last couple of weeks, our runners were met with extremely tough conditions with parts of the course being over a foot deep in mud.
First up was the Women’s 6km race- a fast, two-lap race. True to their form all season, our Women’s scoring runners (Amber Faull, Sasha Clark, and Ottilie Bright) packed tightly together, with less than a minute separating all three. Such tight packing allowed our Women’s team to come 44th, with a fantastic 425 points, their best result since 2018! Our additional runners (Emma Steedman, Tove Tozer, and Chantelle Stansfield) also ran impressive races for their first national level competition.
The final race of the day was the Men’s 10km- a tough, three-lap slog through a course further churned up by the previous races. However, gritty performances from our scoring runners (Alex McCartney, Archie Hall, Tom Gandee, and Thomas Smith) resulted in a 36th team finish, with 728 points, their best result since 2017!
Well done to all our runners! To come back to this competition after a couple of years away and to get such fantastic results is a testament to the hard work everyone has put in over the last few months and an exciting glimpse of our future! A special mention also goes to Alex and Amber, who both ran some of our club’s best ever individual performances at BUCS with 108thand 129th respectively.
Congratulations to FXU Athletics and thank you for sharing your story and images. If you’d like to get involved with the Athletics club, you can find out more about them on the sports directory.