Following on from the ladies Dysart Cup race earlier in the afternoon the men set off for the 5.5 mile Ellis Trophy race on a windy afternoon in Richmond Park.

My only plan for the race was to have a good run, and see how things go, and make sure I didn’t set off too quickly. The course was two laps and it was good to run with a good group of runners from Ranelagh Harriers, The Stragglers and many other local clubs in this invitational cross country race.

At the end of the first lap I headed into what can only be called a ‘Stragglers sandwich’, where I (running in blue) was caught in the middle of a group of runners from The Stragglers club - two of whom I know fairly well (Nigel and Ian). We had a right good tussle with all of us swapping positions multiple times throughout the lap until the final 400 meters or so where I managed to dig deep and get ahead. I was really pleased with my finish and certainly put an effort in - so much so that Sharon (who was watching) thought I was going to collapse!

In the overall results I finished 37th out of 111 with a time of 35:51 (the winning time was 31:47). I scored points for the Ranelagh Harriers team who finished overall in fourth place (with Hercules/Wimbledon first, Serpentine second and The Stragglers in third place).