The final event of the winter cross country series saw an excellent turnout for Striders with 25 runners braving the windy weather with the various maps to travel to Bungay and thanks everyone for turning up.  

In the men's event we were lying equal 3rd with the Bungay/Waveney combined team and the Ladies were in 6th position one point behind Pacers 'B'.  Hence going into the final event the overall position was Striders 3rd with 7 points more than the Bungay/Waveney team.  The men's team at Bungay was the strongest we have fielded in this series and the ladies team the strongest possible turnout. We welcomed Nicola back having got over her cold, Gail still improving after injury, Ellen scoring yet again and Katy well up in support.

I got carried away with the strength of our team, particularly the men, and believed we could hang on to third place.  Even coming close to winning the men's on the day.  However, Waveney/Bungay had other ideas and put out an even stronger team which I guess was clinched by Mr Balls of W/B coming second behind David Miller.  This seems to have been the first outing of Mr Balls this series.  Anyway the Ladies came in 5 points clear of the W/B team but the men were 24 points adrift resulting in Striders coming 4th on the day.

The result for the series being Men 4th the Ladies 3rd and the combined 4th with (3083) just 13 points behind W/B who had (3096).  The battle between W/B men and Striders pushed Pacers 'A' men back into 4th place at Bungay and no doubt helped the Flying Shufflers to a clear and well deserved victory in the series, and I congratulate them on the win.  

On a lighter note Sue Leedham needs to start a little slower and not pace off with David Miller, she was missing Anne Fellingham's influence.  Karen Goodwin was welcomed back from injury.

Several age group trophies were picked up including Colin Pitt, Chris Starmer, Peter Tricker, Anne Fish, and Edward Tricker (for the juniors), but the full results are not yet available.  Thank you to all Striders that turned out for the events and put in such a good performances making the series as exciting as it has been.

Grayhame
Men's Captain