BUCS cross country is one of the biggest races of the season for the Hare and Hounds, it gives the athletes an opportunity to pit themselves against other runners from all universities in the country, as well as escape the Cambridge bubble to Edinburgh for the weekend. The race was to be held at Holyrood park, home turf for a number of Harries and the previous host of Great Edinburgh cross as well as the 2008 world Cross Championships. This year once again CUHH backed their chances of coming home with some medals, this time the the favourite to make the podium was the women’s A team after one of the fastest Varsity races in history in December.
The first race of the day was the new women’s B race, a chance for the depth of the women’s team to get some recognition. First for Cambridge was Gretchen Shanahan judging the race well in the windy conditions and employing the ‘sit and kick’ tactic to perfection, wasting no energy in coming 5th. Helene and Em completed our first scoring team in 41st and 58th respectively, and there were strong runs behind from Grace, Libby and Lucy, moving up the Cambridge ranks from their Varsity races, in 85th, 99th and 104th. The determined duo of Izzy T and Feli were chasing hard throughout the race, and were backed up by a series of strong debutants Rosa, Eleanor, Iona, Izzi M and Lydia, secretary and BUCS organiser superstar Veronica, and Sam, Eliza, Becky and Nikki.
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The next race on the slowly deteriorating course was the men’s B race, with a few drop outs in the lead up to the race it seemed optimistic to hope for another B team medal. Jamie Edgerton (certified hero) took on the race hard, sticking with the leaders for the majority of the 8km course, finishing in 9th. Following this was Aidan Rigby in 15th, Jose in 21st and Josh Cara in 31st, closing the team in 5th behind only repeat simmies and loughborough teams , but in the end winning a bronze medal when the rules (maybe) changed. Only very narrowly missing out was Luke in 32nd, who has made a remarkable recovery from injury last term. Amongst the extremely large contingent of Hareys streaming in were: Tom Kearns in 55th (up 62) after a sprint finish battle with an alumnus, George Roberts moving through the field to 118th (up 65), Toby Speirs showing off his uninjured potential, James Ackland nobly finishing without his spikes, and new faces Thomas, Ondrej and Elias dealing admirably with the mud!
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Then came the race on which Cambridge’s medal hopes were pinned. The women’s A race. With the course getting increasingly muddy but the wind dying down it became less about tactics and more about slogging through the 8km course. Niamh was our first lady home, improving on last year’s position to finish 10th with a big kick in the finishing straight. The classic duo of Emily R and Nancy closed our team not far behind, in 15th and 16th (rumour has it that they have never let another runner finish between them see BUCS 2019) to make us the first team with all three scorers across the line. A nail biting calculation of the results showed that strong runs from the Oxford women (including former Harey captain, Lizzy Apslee) put the oxbridge teams joint 3rd with 41 points, but cambridge winning on count back (last scorer being in a higher position). Running as reserve for Phoebe (who was an excellent Chuggs), Flo Wiggins excelled and looked strong throughout the whole 8km, sprinting in to achieve the Blues standard by finishing 48th.
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In the new order of things the final race of the day was the mens A, a race in which the past two years of silver medals had set the bar high. The team this year suffered from a late dropout and Pete Cameron (for once accidentally putting himself in a selected team) was the one to step up. The race start wasn’t short of drama, with Phillip Crout almost dying after taking a tumble. In the end first in for Cambridge was James Coxon (38th), successfully improving on his varisty and earning himself a cross country blue with a top 50 finish, followed by J Mass in 39th. Despite a fall in the stampede at the start, Phill Crout still broke top 50 in 43rd, with George Gathercole in 44th, Jeremy Demspey in 56th (after a painful looking second half) and last minute call-up Pete Cameron in 92nd. It is just a mark of the ridiculous expectations we have after the medal successes of previous years that the overall 6th place was hard to take, but truly that is an exceptional performance to be 6th of all universities.
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