The encampment of brightly coloured tents, the nervous anticipation, the camaraderie, the waves of charging feet and the oozing, energy-sapping mud, the English National Cross Country Championships are about as close to the experience of a medieval battle as you are likely to get without donning chainmail and being hit with a mace.
There is pain, though.
Cross-country miles are tougher than miles on the road or the track. As such, like away goals in Champions League football, they count for more. Even if some runners consider cross-country an evil, the vast majority know it is a necessary one if you want to get faster, stronger and fitter.
Just about every English middle- or long-distance runner of any international standing has taken part in the championships. Paula Radcliffe and Brendan Foster took senior titles. Liz Yelling has won four times. Mo Farah and Steve Ovett won as juniors. Olympic triathlon gold and silver medallists Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee are cross-country running evangelists.
It is anything but elitist though. To compete in the nationals, the barriers to entry are low – you need to be a member of a running club and have the £7 entry fee. In how many other sports can so many people compete on the national stage? This year, the event was held in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, and saw 5,191 runners compete in 10 categories. According to the English Cross Country Association, participation is increasing.
The range of abilities is vast, from those with ambitions to qualify for the World Championships to those happy to make it around the course without losing a shoe. And you have to admire those who keep going with one shoe. The mud in places was knee deep: it drains muscles and will occasionally swallow carelessly laced footwear. Even in dry sections, uneven ground demands respect, concentration and a strong core.
Ben Connor, winner of this year’s men’s senior title running for Derby Athletic Club, said: “Cross-country running is as much about strength as it is about speed. Seven-and-a-half miles over fields and through muck takes a lot out of you. It’s especially tough on the quads and it’s hard shifting your bodyweight all over the place to cope with the uneven ground. It really isn’t like racing on the road and the only preparation is to spend time running on grassy surfaces and through mud.
“It’s best to get past the really boggy areas quickly by trying to glide over it all. The less time your feet are in contact with the softer ground the better.”
This is easier said than done for those of us without the speed or strength to skip over or power through the regular stretches of deep sludge. Naturally, these are the areas where spectators congregate, many with their camera phones out in anticipation. Good-natured cheers go up when a runner goes down. At least they have a soft landing, albeit into foul-smelling mud and animal faeces.
The chief advantage of soft and uneven ground is that the stress on runners’ joints is reduced compared to road running. That said, roots, rocks, holes and molehills put cross-country runners at greater risk of turning an ankle. Molehills were a major feature of the first uphill stretch of this year’s Wollaton Park course. You had to feel for the moles – wave after wave of thunderous feet must have felt like Armageddon to them. Thereafter, the route itself snaked around, made up of a series of loops that seemed to get larger as the race went on.
The hills appeared to get steeper too, but this may have been psychological. At 12k, the men’s senior category of the National Cross Country Championships is between 2k and 3k longer than courses in local cross-country leagues. And it is a source of annoyance to many runners that senior female competitors run only 8k at the English National Championships. In local leagues, adults all run the same distance.
Ian Byett, honorary secretary of the English Cross Country Association, said: “The reason why women don’t run as far at the Nationals is historic and the distances are converging but it has been a slow process.”
Originally, back in the 1970s, women at the International Association of Athletics Federations World Cross Country Championships raced over just 4k. It has gradually increased over the years, but has stuck at 8k since 1998. It seems that lobbying both the ECCA and the IAAF is the only way to assert women’s equal rights in the English National Championships.
There are certainly male competitors who would prefer a shorter distance. The last few kilometres are agonising. The discomfort is clear in the pictures that sponsors Saucony supplied to competitors to post on social media. In shots from the last 2k, my own face is that of a man trying to metabolise an old shovel.
Cross country isn’t supposed to be easy though. That is the point. The harder you make it for yourself and the more challenging the terrain, the greater the endorphin rush at the finish – especially if, like me, you hold on to the coveted 1,304th position after a desperate lung-burning sprint finish.
Cold, wet and exhausted with aching legs covered in filth, this is the culmination of the cross-country season for a growing army of devotees.
“This is proper running,” said one veteran. He had a point.
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