Despite lacking a few of our Penair runners after their good performances in the Schools Cup at St Albans the previous day, thirty eight CAC athletes braved the windy, though thankfully dry, conditions at St Austell Rugby Club on Sunday.

We fielded a very healthy fifteen Senior Men and they sorted out everyone except for a strong Tavistock team, who pipped us on the day and decreased our lead overall by 8 points.  Our ‘B’ team were 4th, ‘C’ team 7th and the Veterans team won their category.

Dave Buzza was 5th, ahead of Matt Cleave’s best League race yet in 7th.  Tony Dunn’s still moving up through the field with every race and was 11th (4th Vet), leading in two of our young up-and-comers, Nathan Gosling (15th) and Will Collins (17th).   Jason Pascoe made a welcome return to racing in 20th, closely followed by a sprightly looking Adrian Ball (22nd), showing no ill-effects from his recent 2nd place in the Cornish Marathon.

A great 7th place for Matt

Adrian, 'fresh' from his 2nd place in the
Cornish Marathon
. 
Super-consistent Dave Rowe brought our winning Veterans team home in 27th and two youngsters rapidly getting the measure of the Seniors, Craig Cadwallader and Ollie Starr were 31st and 44th.  John Waldie, had his best league result of the season in 54th,  just beating Aaron Rodger by 2 seconds, who was running his first cross country race since school.

Dave and Ollie, regular team members

John in full flight

Club stalwart Roger Lock was doing some over-distance work in preparation for the indoor track season that he and wife Barbara are aiming for and things are obviously going well as he’s 58 and still finished in 62nd place.  Ian Wright’s already showed that he’ll turn out for the team when not 100% and got safely around in 66th, after having to dnf last week and poor Dave Angilley did well to get round after tweaking his hamstring again, finishing 68th.

Our Under 17 Boys were 2nd again to a very good Plymouth outfit but all are a year young in that age group, with Ryan Cleave again leading them home in 3rd, from James Waldie, struggling a little with a cold and a little below par in 6th.   Felix Coates continues to run strongly in 7th.  They were backed up by good 800m runner Daniel Drew (14th), obviously benefiting from his strength training.

The dependable Daniel, an invaluable team member

The U15s again didn’t manage to finish a team but we’ve got good talent here and Sam Harry won his second league race of the season.  He’ll have to race all the three post-Christmas  league races to win the overall title though, after missing Redruth.  Sam Williams ran a brave race in the conditions, getting away fast and hanging on but tired later as the steadier starters came past him.  Sam still managed to hang on for 10th though and the team were 2nd as only one complete team finished.

The U13 boys are possibly our best team at present and they won easily again.  Sam Heslop-George got the better of Callum Jones for a fine victory, with Callum consolidating his overall lead in 3rd.  Tom Rawet was not far behind in 5th and Edward Alston is steadily closing on those three and was 6th.  Liam Littlejohns, a year younger than most, is providing good support and was 14th.

Action from the Under 13 Boys race
Sam, Callum and Tom force the pace

Plenty of CAC vests to the fore

Sam, the eventual winner, on the shoulder of Callum

Our Senior Ladies, like the men, are leading overall but only just won at St Austell to slightly extend their lead.  Bethany Alston was 4th and 2nd U17, continuing her great season and Emma Stallard dug deep to overtake a Newquay athlete at the finish to give us victory by one point.  It was great to see Heidi Cottam back in the yellow and green and she had a fine run in 16th, with Suzy Bosustow, looking like she was loving every minute (she’s not too keen on the country!), going well for 20th.  Jenny Almey had a solid run in 28th and Hannah Griffin had a fine debut off-road in 40th, helping the ‘B’ team to 8th position.

Emma, getting back to her best form

The U15 girls are a very strong outfit and are sweeping all aside in the league races.  They were led home again by Freya Glover in 3rd place, coping well with the absence of Ellie Starr and Caitlin Mulroy to finish 1st and 3rd teams.  Freya had a strong, though isolated, race in the wind and Olivia Ballard came through the field well for 5th, not far ahead of Amy Rundle in 7th, who had done a lot of the work into the elements.  Hannah Isles was only 20 seconds down in 9th, narrowly beating Anna Ashbridge in 10th and Jenna Kistle, improving all the time, finished 13th.

Freya, leading the team home again