29th December 2002

• Men's Results
• Ladies Results
• Junior Results
• Team Results

Being the 29th of December I arrived not expecting to see many runners, only to be surprised that there were so many.  I guess many were simply escaping the family commitments and returning to running after the Christmas dinners and excessive chocolates.  It was no surprise that it was pouring with rain, yet again!, making this event the third consecutive cross country race with excessive precipitation.

Thankfully the start of the race was prompt followed by the sound of squelching mud as about 165 runners began the 5 mile mud bath.  The ground was hopelessly slippy and quickly mulched into a watery consistency.  Runners tried running round the puddles but quickly realised their hopeless efforts to remain dry.  More amusing was the number of runners taking the corners wide with fairy steps in an effort to maintain their pride by not going ass over head in the mud.   Myself included!

The 2 lap course seemed to take forever and once past the shock of exercise, I thought this was a hard but also enjoyable run.  The highlight for me must have been the communal bathing in the stream.  You were wet and muddy from bum to toe, so a dip in the stream appeared a great idea.  Anyway, isn't bathing in ice cold water what Paula Ratcliffe does?!

Despite the date and weather, this race saw a great turnout by the Striders.  However, we were sadly lacking in the fast boys.  Both Chris Ling and Colin Pitts were there but fully clothed under an umbrella reviewing the race from the sidelines.  If, buts and when's...  Well done to Grayhame for convincing so many to run and well done to the ladies for a great 3rd place.

With only 2 races left, we can begin to look at individuals with potential medal chances.  For the ladies, Karen Goodwin is currently lying in 3rd spot for the ladies senior category.  Gail Sparkes is topping the Ladies 40-45, also Anne Fellingham in the ladies 55-60 category.  For the men Chris Starmer is in 2nd spot for the men's 40-45 as is Peter Tricker in his category 50-55.

Full results will be available by following this link.  Here are the Stowmarket Strider results:-

Men's:

Ladies:

Junior:

Edward Tricker finished 17th in a time of 8.17.  Ben Naughton finished 26th in 9.14 followed by his brother Tom in 38th place in a time of 10.18.  Junior male Stowmarket Strider team are in 4th place out of the 8 teams.

Team: (out of 13 teams)

Team: (out of 13 teams) After 3 events

A pretty steady 4th place being 100 points ahead of the Flying Shufflers in 5th and 130 points behind Newmarket Joggers in 3rd place.  Pacers are a long way ahead of the rest with 2654 points followed by Waveney and Bungay in 2nd with 2306 points.  Two more sterling efforts and we could take third!?