The weather was crisp but dry and good racing conditions for the penultimate KLXC fixture.

Missing the 3 other members from our London XC 🥉place team from the previous week (Sam racing Fulham 10k on the Sunday, Jed up in Loughborough and me injured), it was over to the remaining member of that team, Kevin Fini, to lead the team home in a very strong run in 11th place.

Kev was in a good battle with the Cambridge Harriers Ben and Danny and was ahead of both coming into the finishing straight when a lapped runner pulled out and Kev had to take evasive action having to go the wrong side of the tape and then having to duck back under before a sprint finish to try to catch the two Cambridge guys who’d gone past him in the meantime – a run worthy of a top 10 finish.

Second to score for us was Ollie Knowles in his XC debut for us, having been in hibernation since his 2:28 London Marathon in April, it was great to see Ollie moving through the field finishing in 14th, just ahead of Leon De Bruyn, our third to score and top Dad of the day in 15th place – another great run from Leon.

Completing our four to score with good packing was Justin Strover just a few places back in 18th – it’s been great to have Justin (and Jake!) back from Uni and racing for the men’s team after having grown up through the club.

Just outside the scoring four we had three guys close together – Dave Adams in perhaps his best XC race of the season in 23rd, Jake Leng on his long-awaited and welcome season debut in 25th and (sleep deprived due to new baby?!) Graeme Lugar in 26th.

Next up was Doug Varney in 41st who of course had done Parkrun earlier in the day, ever present this KLXC Gareth Evans in his highest finish of the season in 65th, Mathieu Ducep making his club debut with a strong run post-injury in 68th, Phil Bunn with a great run and highest KLXC placing this year in 72nd and Greg Firth with another solid and consistent run in 86th completed our 12 to score.

Jon Pairman with a good run in 93rd completed our runners in the top 100.

Then we had James Naylor our 800m specialist completing his first KLXC in 121st, Ian Scott in 147th, Chris Fishlock in 154th, Jason Meers in 157th, Dave Beadle in 189th, Steve Pairman in 194th and Chris Martin in 197th completing our team.

We came 4th in the 4 to score but are 3rd overall after 3 races and 3rd in the 12 to score, also 3rd overall.

Full results are on the Kent Athletics website here