It was very slippery at Cardiff today, as I completed both the senior and the masters races, finishing 30th in the senior race and 5th in the masters. Ben N. won the main race, Kevin was third behind Alan Buckley from Gateshead. Rob didn't look so happy in 7th - but Robbie wasn't far behind in 8th.

Dan M. won the masters race that was very interesting. Bash was second, but he didn't really have the air of somebody who had travelled a fair distance to do the masters race. Martin Rees was third, keeping the Welsh crowd interested, he was working hard to stay in contention with the lead, and he doesn't seem to have done any cross country for years, I think his incredible talent saw him through. For the first half of the race David Carrie of Ireland made up the group of leaders, eventually finishing fourth. All of this gave the race a feeling of quality, and I certainly wasn't going to get involved with the four of them - although I had already done another race. Karen Buckley comfortably won the women's race, although Cath Wheeler was only two places behind as the men and women ran together.

The senior race was a quality field, it wasn't quite as thick and fast as the fornt of the national, but similar, looking at a few of the results, Rob and Robbie 7th and 8th, Richie Gardner 14th and Tom Lowe 19th - this was a strong field. I'm not going to fair well at the start of a senior race, and felt bad at the start. Eventually I got going, caught up with Pete Grist, and slowly  moved up the field, getting away from Dan Dalmedo and getting past Charles Coleman, I don't think I've run against him before, but he was just ahead of me for most of the race. In the final run in I closed on Martin Hilton, finishing just a second behind him.

...and Martin brings me round to the Civil Service, doubtless there will be further emails about the representative race, but we could have done OK, perhaps in future years.