Fighting for every point

A somewhat depleted men’s squad probably chose quite a good race to have an 'iffy' day.  Aldershot were out in remarkable force on their home patch, fielding last year’s National cross-country champion as their 3^rd scorer and packing five athletes into the top 10 and closing in 14.With National Cross team champions Tonbridge in 2^nd and an as usual strong Kent in 3^rd, it looked like 4^th for us, but as it went we tied with Herne Hill and they edge us by closing in 20 sooner; fair enough.With Paskar and Andrius taking minor chill pills, we savoured a splendid run by Nick Buckle who defeated AJ and placed just 14 seconds behind PO.  What a runner!Another man to have a great day was Garret who stormed through the field in the latter stages.  America claims him back now but thanks to him for the albeit brief memories.Great to see Alex Miller back to his old self with more strong running and who else to see us home by Tom O’Beirne having a stormer.  We’re gutted to lose Tom and Christina to London City AC (I confess I’d never even heard of them), but it’s an arms race out there and we can but take the hit[s] and move on.Really good packing followed with Ross looking good, a startling run from a visiting Mike Trees (runner-up here 15 editions ago), and Patrick keeping a close watch a little way back.Lots to work with then in 2018, and plenty of athletes to hopefully return.Many more photos may be found on our Facebook page here; and [we're spoiling you now] a video of the race is here. 1 J Gilbert (Ken) 36:58; 2 G Duggan (Ton) 37:07; 3 J Sanderson (G&G) 37:09; 16 P Owor 38:59, 17 N Buckle 39:13; 22 A Jaksevicius 39:50; 38 G Lee 41:23; 43 A Miller 41:36; 60 T O'Beirne 43:15; 63 R Finlay 43:20; 67 M Trees M50 43:40;  70 P McDougall M50 44:11.  159 finished1 AFD 53; 2 Tonbridge 107; 3 Kent 135; 4 Herne Hill H 196; 5 Belgrave H 196.  18 teams closed in.