Posted on: March 23rd 2017 | Category:
By the Chesney Brothers.
It was a hard run on March 10th at Aldenham School for the Under 11 and Under 9 Boys and Girls. It was not a particularly cold or rainy day but the ground was wet and muddy from the rain the days before and the course was slippery and treacherous.
Some of the years 6s including me, Luke, went ahead of the other children to set up, as Norfolk House was hosting. We were able to get a good idea of the terrain although some of us have run there a lot before, so we knew what we were in for. When we arrived we all got on our studs and when everyone was there, Mr Jowett made a welcome speech.
The first race was the 1.3 km under 9s girls, which was won by Maple Walk School but in which Honor Mohan came first out of the NH girls. Next up was the boys’ under 9s, won also by Maple Walk but Max Hoving came in first out of the NH participants.
After that was the under 11s girls who ran 1.7km. Maple Walk School won again but from Norfolk House Ava Rivat came in first. We ran in the under 11 boys which was also 1.7km. After warming up, we lined up at the start line, adrenaline pumping and raring to go. Ahead of us stretched the course and the older boys acting as course leaders had already set off to guide us round the course and set a pace. We wished each other good luck and then when the starting whistle went, we set off, pacing ourselves for the long slog ahead. Out of the NH participants it was Zac Carter in first, followed by Tommy then me with a few other runners from other schools in between the NH runners. We kept our pace strong and at one point I thought I was way behind but I looked back behind me and was urged on when I saw that I was actually way ahead of most. About 200m before the end our very own Zac Carter and Ritchie Grant had a tussle for the finish line, sprinting the whole way to make second, and Zac came in third, with a good effort. I spurted on to the end and turned round to see that my brother Christian having lagged behind me for a while was close behind me thanks to his secret tactic of a surging sprint finish but I still came in at NH 3rd and overall 15th out of 60 runners. This was my last NH cross country race but I will keep training hard and look forward to running more Cross Country for my next school.
For me (Christian) it was great to be pushing ahead of many of my class mates and I came in just after my brother Luke at 16th out of 60 runners altogether. I had a strong sprint finish and I could hear my mum cheering from the side and my little brother Sebastian even louder who came to watch and who is also a great runner! The feeling of completing and coming in so close behind Luke who is 11 months older than me, was great. An exhilarating competition and although NH didn’t win the tournament we had a great feeling of team spirit.
