WG CDR COLE REPORTING

RAF Halton hosted the annual RAF v Police v Fire v Civil Service v Oxford University v USAF v Clubs various on 20 Jan 10. Despite, the snow and even rain on the day, the vast majority of the course remained good going, meaning that the pace of the race was fast. Through the woods was a little tricky, but still plenty of purchase was possible.

The Cross Country Secretary, Sqn Ldr Simon Bell (RAF High Wycombe) had done very well to encourage more associations and clubs to take part. This year, 102 men and 34 ladies raced.

In the men’s race over 10.6 k expectations were high for Cpl Rob Bugden (RAF Cosford), who was making his debut for the RAF over cross country. Rob led from the start and engaged in a lengthy battle with the Fire Services Tom Ford. The pair of them took it turns to lead and to his credit, Rob showed tremendous tenacity to pull though and win the race by 10 secs from Tom. 3rd place went to Pete Tucker from the Police and in another great performance on the day, Cpl Steve Robinson (RAF Cottesmore) finished 4th. The next RAF runner home was Cpl Kieran White (RAF Benson) who finished 5th. Both Kieran and Steve have really lifted their games this season and both these performances augur very well for the Inter Services, where they both will feature. Next home for the RAF was veteran and RAF Cross Country Team Manager Wg Cdr Dave Cole (RAF High Wycombe) who came home 9th. Completing the 6 counters were SAC Oz Ellis (RAF Benson) 14th and taking a break from RAF Mountain Biking (Cpl Dan Lewis) 16th.

In the team race the RAF Men came 1st with 44, Police 2nd with 63, Fire 3rd with 67 and the Civil Service 4th with 126.

In the ladies race Cpl Jodie Digby (RAF Halton) enjoyed running on home turf and mixed with the leading group from the gun. Clearly demonstrating her superb form in the month before the Inter Service Championships, she maintained her position with the leading pack to achieve an excellent 4th place overall. Also displaying good form, Flt Lt Jo Johnson (RAF Halton) also took advantage of racing on her training ground and strormed round to achieve an outstanding 7th place. Closely followed by in-form Flt Lt Becky Griffith (Swanick Mil) who finished just 7 sec adrift in 8th place. Completing the team scoring was Sqn Ldr Jo Roe (RAF Wittering) who ran extremely well and finished in 27.22 to achieve 9th place. The race was extremely well supported by RAF Ladies as the event was opened to athletes in the Lincs Service League and the Southern Services League which made for an excellent turnout of 32 runners.

In the team race the Police came 1st and the RAF Ladies 2nd narrowly missing out by a couple of points.

Full Results