At last!!!  Hail the conquering heroes, our women's team won on Saturday evening!  Plus the B team came 13th  and we fielded ten Ladies.  Well done everyone.  Add this to the Men's team victory, a great 3rd place for the Men's B team and another good victory for Jo Friday, it was a successful evening for CAC.

Jo, leading the Ladies to victory

Jo led the girls to a team win with a fairly comfortable victory and is looking ever more like a future Grand Prix champion,  if she continues to maintain her superb form.  She led a very strong team, which coped well with poor Emma's drop down the field with an injured ankle.  Kiri Wedlock made a welcome return home and ran strongly for 8th position, just ahead of Sarah Keast in 9th and Suzy Bosustow in 10th.  Jenny Almey was unlucky to miss out on a team place but will be happy to have seemingly got over her stomach problems, coming 12th and despite hobbling badly, Emma still finished 21st lady with a gutsy effort for the team. 

Kiri, home for the weekend

Our strength in depth on the women's side continued with Jill Curtis running 45 minutes 18 seconds and pipping Lynette Torr by seven places overall.  Nikki Coleman and Samantha Alexander continued their rapid improvement, finishing together in 48 minutes 17 seconds, with Sam less than a minute slower than at Cubert.

Sarah, the better looking Keast!

On the Men's front CAC filled four of the first five places but they all had to give best to Nigel Stirk, an international cross country runner competing in Tipton's colours, who was down on holiday.  Nigel gradually eased away from first Dave Buzza and then Ollie Shilston in the last mile and a half, with Ollie comfortably holding off Dave for 2nd.  Chris Harry ran sensibly, not finishing like Jim Peters this time and overtook a struggling Matt Pullen with a mile to go to come 4th and 1st 45-49 Veteran, with Matt hanging on desperately for 5th.  He led for most of the first mile and was still just behind the lead trio at 2.5 miles but those hills coming back were more painful for him than most.

Susi, wired for sound

Jon Keast, one of our most consistent performers, and came 7th and Jason Pascoe, running well again, brought the A team home finishing 15^th, well inside the half hour.

Jenny, a much better run this time

You've got to feel sorry for our B team runners, all of whom would be in the A teams of every other club but at Sticker their quality performances were rewarded with third team position, so congratulations to Phil Tugwell, Justin Thomas, Adam Tatlow, Dave Southby, Dave Angilley and Dave Pell for their well deserved trophies.  See Dave S for them boys.  Phil sneaked under the half hour in 19th and is getting fitter all the time, with his shin problems under control now and Justin somehow managed to run only 7 seconds slower than at Cubert, with a storming 30.04 for 21st place.  Most reckon the hills of Sticker to be worth an extra 30-40 seconds up front and correspondinly more down the field, when compared to Cubert.  Adam, despite concentrating on his County hockey recently, had a good run in 23^rd place and Dave S is still moving up the race fields all the time and came 44th this time.  His rise is very reminiscent of Adrian Ball, who a few years ago started in the midfield of races and with good, consistent training has gutsy racing moved him into the top ten more often than not. Good to see him at the track again last Tuesday after injury.  Dave A gets the award for slowest race in comparison to Cubert, running nearly 3 minutes slower.  Not sure why, but he nearly lost out to Dave P who somehow managed to run only 4 seconds slower than at Cubert.  Great run Dave.

Brave Emma, nursing an injury

Ken Curtis led home the C team, in 78th place, again good enough to make a lot of A teams and all other B teams and was closely followed by Danny Marsh in 85th, who equalled his time from 3 three weeks ago, thereby qualifying either for the laziest runner award or the run of the night award.  I haven't decided which yet!  Pete Torr ran a very solid 35.04 for 105th and then Viv beat Graham by only 7 seconds.  They're a worry those two but love is a wonderful thing!

Great run Jill

Paul Reeve, after telling me he wasn't going to race for a while on Friday, decided that a while was actually only 24 hours (!) and ran a great race to finish 153rd, beating well over half the field and is getting stronger all the time.

It was great to see twenty eight CAC runners in action, even without Nathan G who missed the start and Matt L whose wife had to be taken to hospital!  She's back home now and best wishes to Ali for a speedy recovery!

370 finishers