Cross Country Captain Report:
Cross country reports November 2010
Colwyn Bay
With so many runners unable to compete in Colwyn bay I was worried that we would develop a huge mountain to climb after just one race. The strength in depth of the club proved otherwise and we managed to finish third in division two behind Meirionydd and Oswestry. It was pleasing to see some new blood among the club with 15 year old Callum Smith making a promising debut in the under 17s race and Oliver Harrison Jones being the second finsher from the club in his first race and 2nd U 20. In the over 70’s race the old war horse Dave Hughes took 2nd place.  18 men turned up overall to compete and it was great to see all 6 counters in the top 100 (Matt, Oliver, George, Neil Halliday, Des and Chris. The other 10 members, George Nixon (103), Gareth Bailey (115) Arwel (120) John Hughes Roberts (121) Christ Taft (124) Gareth (146) Steve (150) Darrell (162) Phil (167) and David (173)  helped to push other teams back with Chris Taft making a welcome return and David Owen giving cross country a try for the first time. Special credit must go to Darrell (who had travelled thousands of miles that week) and Steve who cut a holiday short to join the team.

Bangor
With my wife due the week before it was inevitable that I was going to miss the Bangor race. It was over to Matt Anwyl to lead the club home again finishing in a great 29th position although he was slightly disappointed as he thought he had more in the tank left. Matt was followed by the running machine that is George Nicholls (59) Neil who made a welcome return from injury and battled George all the way (64) Des again having a good race (79)  George Nixon getting back to his best form (80) and Arwel having a great run and sneaking in to the top 100 (96) to again ensure we had 6 counters in the top 100.  Gareth and Phil both ran well picking up 3rd place in the O60’s and O65’s respectively. Steve ‘smiler’ Hatfield finished between the pair (131) improving by 19 places from the previous race in Colwyn Bay. But it was left to the oldest member of the team to grab the plaudits with Dave Hughes (not for the first time) winning the over 70’s race.
The results leaves us nearly 400 points behind Division Two leaders Merrionydd and 200 behind second place Oswestry. With only 3 races left it may seem a huge deficit to overturn but in true PRC fashion if we are going down we are not going down without a fight. With the likes of Gordon, Myself and Griff just to name a few members missing, we have not been at our strongest for the first two races but have still done exceptionally well. Hopefully we can show in the next few races (and of course the North Wales Championships where we will be defending our title) just what we are capable of when we are at our best!

 Dean Longley Cross Country Captain