Junior XC and lots more

Above - Imogen Sheppard and Georgie Campbell. Below - Alex Adams on his way to victory. This week there is a report on the West Midland Junior Cross Country League Fixture, where once again over 60 of our junior members truly did do the club proud. There's Emma, Emily and Rebecca running the Malaga marathon, Ruth Claderbank breaking the W65 club record for a 10 mile race and Jon Mulkeen running another PB There's also another reminder about the club's Christmas Run and news about a local Christmas Tree Festival featuring our very own club Christmas tree, plus there's lots of wonderful photos of our junior XC runners, mostly courtesy of Mike Sheppard. Best Wishes David Clockwise from top left. Maxime Verstraeten, Flynn Dathan, Ellie Deaner and Abbi Wootton West Midlands Junior Cross Country League. Report - Dave Parkin. A foot of overnight snow saw this fixture cancelled last year. Considerably more benign conditions in Perry Park greeted the athletes on Sunday but recent heavy rain had been enough to make some sections of the course quite tricky. On a relatively short, flat course and despite many member of the team having raced at the Schools Inter Counties just 24 hours prior – Stratford AC had their best result of the season so far, placing third out of 20 clubs on the day and strengthening their hold on third place in the league. The U17 women had another strong team performance, with Georgie Campbell again battling at the front before being pipped at the post in a hard fought sprint finish (2nd, 16:38). Imogen Sheppard had another fine performance (11th, 18:05) in a consistent season. Unfortunately, Daisy Musk had to withdraw while in a promising position, which on another day would have posed problems for the team but Abi Wootton, in her first outing of the season, ran a strong race to take the third scoring position (13th, 18:18). Daisy Nicolle (30th, 20:04) and Charlotte Gravelsons (36th, 21:12) made up the team. The U11 boys had a tougher outing, with rapidly improving Maxime Verstraeten (22nd, 6:42) first finisher for the team, closely followed by James Day (27th, 6:46). The next three finishers for the club all finished within two seconds of each other, scrapping hard even up the sharp climb to the finish. Flynn Dathan (32nd, 6:51) just edged out Seb Hillard (33rd, 6:51) and Joe Lewis (34th, 6:52). Oliver Hemming (44th, 7:00) and Alex McMillan (73rd, 7:19) both improved on their previous outing, and the remaining team members were Harry Francioni (96th, 7:47) and Ewan Lindsey (100th, 7:53). In the U17 men’s race, Owain Jones (30th, 18:47), Will Crowfoot (40th, 19:25) and Tom Crowfoot (42nd, 19:34) worked hard and took the scoring positions. Owain had made a last-minute decision to compete, having been suffering from a bronchial virus leading up to the race. Completing the team were Josh Angus (52nd, 21:00) who ran with obvious commitment and Oliver Adams (56th, 21:47) who looked like he was feeling fitter than…