Summerhill Cross Country, 4 Dec 2022

As I’m quite new to running cross country with my club New Marske Harriers, I haven’t got to know all of the courses yet and Summerhill in Hartlepool was one of the courses that was new to me. I had heard that it could be slippery in places and had a couple of hills so I thought it would be best to wear my spikes, and I’m glad that I did!

The course started with a lap of the playing field then went down the edge of a field, leading to a stream that we had to jump over! The course followed some footpaths around a country park and the fields next to it and involved two laps. There was one very slippery downhill section which I had to take extra care on and one very steep uphill section, where the crowds were gathered to watch us all suffer.

I started off close to the front but a few people overtook me as I struggled to keep up the pace on the hills, the spikes helped me to at least go forwards though, rather than sliding back down! I tried to maintain a steady pace where I could and when we turned back onto the sports field at the end I managed to get a sprint finish in, ending up as 8th female out of 78 and 2nd in my category. I was pleased with my result and I’ve picked up a few things to work on for next time.

Sarah Hunter