WORDS: TINA CHANTREY
The iconic venue of Parliament Hill, swaddled by Hampstead Heath, was the setting for the Saucony English National Cross-Country Championships. It was a freezing cold February day, and every runner participating had to fight against the mud to finish. Our club team made the pilgrimage to the Nationals, along with 10,000 other runners from across the country, knowing that however the race panned out, it would be an adventure for each one of us. We got there early, so we could support the younger runners as they kindly churned the boggy areas for us. In every race, we watched runners stop to try and retrieve their shoes or spikes, some wading through mud in their socks.