Belgrave Harriers won the National Cross Country Relays title for the second consecutive year with a dominant display at Mansfield’s Berry Park.

Kate Axford breaks the tape with the quickest leg of the day. Photo: Graham Smith

The three Belles teams that competed in the National Cross Country Relays produced possibly the best ever performance by the women's team. The A team retained their Championship win with an even greater winning margin than the 40 second gap of last year, and two outstanding B and C teams finished in 7th and 15th positions out of the 106 teams that started the race.

It was an overcast day with a light drizzle, but nothing like the heavy rain of a year ago. The tricky undulating course got a little muddy in the woods, but remained grassy elsewhere.

Sarah Astin clearly set the scene when arrived early at the new Belgrave tent, relaying to her teammates that “not winning today is out of the question”. She and Kate Axford had recently returned from spells of altitude training in the Pyrenees. Both were raring to race.

Glory to the A team

Nadine Donegan took the first leg for the A team. After a summer break, Nadine sealed her place in the top team with a superb performance in a recent race in Ireland. Nadine’s abilities are all the more impressive as she juggles her training with an extremely demanding job as a nurse at Broadmoor Hospital.

Nadine (A909) awaits the starter’s gun. Photo by Graham Smith

Nadine set the tone for the day and started fast, and was leading the race until halfway through the 3km leg. While she tired a little over the hilly closing stages, she finished just a dozen seconds off the lead in 6th place, setting the team up beautifully.

It took Sarah Astin no more than a couple of minutes to overtake all of the runners ahead and move into the lead. She then had quite a battle with the Aldershot B team runner before increasing her pace over the final kilometre to give Kate Axford a five second lead over into the final lap. Sarah is clearly back to her best, her time later proved to be the third fastest of the day.

It took just two minutes for Sarah Astin to move from sixth to first. Photo: Charlie McCarthy

Kate took off on the last stage, seemingly extending the Belles lead with every stride. Eventually, the Aldershot A team overtook their B team but Kate continued to pile on the pace right to the end, extending the winning margin to almost a minute. Her time was easily the fastest of the day, a terrific run.

Kate Axford, Gemma Astin and Sarah Astin win the trophy in 2023. Photo by Mark Shearman

Nadine Donegan, Sarah Astin and Kate Axford with the trophy in 2024. Photo by Charlie McCarthy

Seventh for the Bs

Imogen Wolsey has returned to competitive racing after a gap of almost ten years. She was a very talented junior, but like so many others, overtrained at a young age which led to injury, before eventually stepping away from the sport. Imogen just gets better with every race and here finished just five seconds behind Nadine in 10th place.

This is the third successive year that Kristina Popadich has raced at Mansfield, and she just gets faster every year. A very solid stage brought the team up three places to 7th when Kristina handed over to Sophie Hicks for the final leg who had quite a tussle with the teams around her, but produced another excellent time maintaining the Belles 7th position at the end.

l-r: Imogen Wolsey, Sophie Hicks and Kristina Popadich. Photo by Charlie McCarthy

C team finishes 15th

For team captains Mimi Corden-Lloyd and Steph Hewitt to be in the C team just shows the remarkable strength in depth of this team.

Mimi has had such an excellent year, achieving personal bests in every distance on the track, plus 5km and 10km PBs on the road. Many of the weaker teams top load with their best runner on the first leg, but Mimi coped brilliantly running her own race and finishing well under eleven minutes in 28th place, a very fine run.

Steph is another with a very demanding and time consuming job, she often has to train late in the evening and on her own. However, this never dampens her enthusiasm and commitment and she produced yet another strong performance moving the team through to 21st before handing over to Molly Canham.

Molly is another who has suffered long periods of injury, but she is now building up her winter training slowly and very sensibly. Her main focus is 800m on the track, an event in which she is very talented. She is using cross-country races to gain fitness and strength. Molly took another six places in another very good time to finish the team in a truly excellent 15th place.

l-r: Axford, Astin, Wolsey, Popadich, Hicks, Corden-Lloyd, Canham, Donegan, Hewitt.

RESULTS.

Belgrave A, 29:39, {N. Donegan 10:11 (6), S. Astin 9:52 (1), K. Axford 9:35 (1)}. 2. Aldershot A 30;37, 3. Aldershot C 30:52.
7. Belgrave B, 31:21, {I. Wolsey 10:16 (16), K. Popadich 10:45 (7), S. Hicks 10:20 (7)}..... Belgrave C, 33:07, {M. Corden-Lloyd 10:52 (28), S. Hewitt 11:03 (21), M. Canham 11:11 (15)}.

Full results