I've been getting muddy. While I had run a cross-country race in 2022 and two in 2023, it has only been this season (Oct 2024 - March 2025) in which I have really started to appreciate the sport in its own right as opposed to it just being a different variation on running.
The Gwent League is the premier competition in the South Wales and Bristol region. Races take place across that region, although notably in the current season not actually in Gwent. It is a day long event with age group races taking place, ensuring a buzz of activity when you arrive. In one part of the field will be an encampment of club tents.
I missed the opening fixture at Pembrey Country Park because it clashed with a road 10k I was taking part in on the Wirral, but I did run in the second fixture at Llandaff Fields in Cardiff. In addition to this being a league fixture, it was also the opening round of the British Athletics UK Cross-Challenge series and a gold label World Athletics Cross-Country Tour event. This meant that elite runners were taken part alongside the masses, and I was very much at the slower end of the masses. It is difficult to think of many sports in which you can go from watching athletes compete in Olympic finals to starting alongside them. Even when there are elite runners in a road race, you applaud them from your pen much further back in the field but never really see them after the gun. With cross-country they pass by, just a lap ahead!
Prior to the third Gwent League fixture, I took part in a Gwent Leisure Centre League race hosted by the club I'm a member of, Lliswerry Runners. This took place in a storm. There were competitors slipping and sliding, including the eventual race winner who face-planted into a muddy puddle on his way to victory. While fraught while running, it was the kind of event that you leave with plenty of stories. The Leisure Centre league is a relatively smaller event contested between nine clubs in Gwent. The next Gwent League fixture was at Blaise Castle in Bristol, the third time I'd taken part in this race in three years.
While there were no Gwent League fixtures in January, there was the Welsh Cross Country Championships. Following some cajoling from Lliswerry Runners I entered, although in truth, even a few days beforehand I was unsure if I'd take part. I did not feel I was a good enough runner to be in something called the Welsh Championships. I was used to finishing towards the back of the field at Gwent League races, and feared I could become detached from a race at this level. I went for it and I finished 174th in a field of 193. Too close for comfort, but not left behind. Due in part to a quirk of how many teams were taking part, I unexpectedly (to the extent I had to ask for it to be explained to me) helped Lliswerry to an age group team bronze medal.
The league restarted in February although I missed that race at Margam Park, Port Talbot due to a cold. The final races of the Gwent League and Leisure Centre League seasons took place on successive weekends in March in Brecon, and Newport (hosted by Griffithstown Harriers) respectively. In each Gwent League fixture I took part in, I was the last finisher for my club. Nonetheless, those finishes all came with a sense of satisfaction.
In addition, to my own running I have taken a broader interest in cross-country watching broadcasts of the other legs of the Cross Challenge Series, English National Championships and European Championships. I am not sure I have necessarily picked up running tips for next season, but I've definitely added a depth to my understanding of the sport and that has built an enthusiasm for next season. I am already re-considering some of my running plans for late 2025.
There is a vibrancy around cross-country, although I do tend to find that this is lost midway through the race when I am asking myself why did I do this, but it always comes back in the last kilometre. It is an environment in which you witness elite performances from people with whom you shared a start-line. Sometimes, you get to see people who have performed well in local leagues demonstrate just how good they really are when they take on and very best in the country.
At the very highest level there is a debate as to whether cross-country should become an Olympic event, likely in the Winter Olympics. I hope the discipline has that opportunity.
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