Bristol & West men finished third in this year's National XC!This is about the most unexpected result in my recent running career, I didn't read the Evening Post on Friday, but I don't think anybody was expecting medals! I can't complain about my run, I finished 82nd and I was hoping for the top 100, looking at the results I would have hoped for better on a good day but it's been a hard week travelling at work and I'm not back to full speed yet. The start was a stampede and after the course was very full in the early stages. Tim made a good start just ahead of me, coping with the physical congestion without using extra energy. I found the going tough and was slowed down by the crowd, but I could see Gordon L. ahead and Tim being close was helpful. Things got a lot worse after the first time up the dreaded hill, my stomach felt awful and my legs felt very tired. I was slipping out of the first 100 and lost about a dozen places on the second time up the hill. I'm not back to my best, but these days I'm better at hanging on in there in hope, and indeed eventually the distance started to tell and I gained places on the last lap eventually finishing 82nd - even though I felt very ill at the end. The B&W team medal was quite incredible, Phil Wylie led the team home in 17th, with Kevin 22 and Rob 35, these are all wonderful performances by extremely talented athletes, but not the mega-star runs of Frank and Ben when Avon & Somerset won the Inter Counties last year. Phil is finally a cross country force in his own right, Kevin had problems and had to stop - so he did exceptionally well, and Rob has made progress from the Midlands. Tim ran an excellent race, moving through the field in the second half of the race to finish 56, and Jon hung on, over a slippery hilly course that wasn't going to suit him, to finish 91 to bring the team home inside 100. Dan N. and Neville provided back-up support that we usually need. The strange thing is that nobody had mentioned medals. As I was running round the Tipton supporters thought that their ninth man was one of their runners close to me, I can only think that with the big numbers their green hooped shirts were very similar to Woodford. Also most people thought I was around 100th, it's true people tend to drop out and there was mayhem on the course when we caught up the back markers, but I thought I would finish around 90, not 82. We must have been lucky, Kevin could have stopped, Jon is a good team man and always finishes, but I would have been tempted to stop in his shoes, and had I dropped clearly out of the top 100, I could have easily lost the 90 points we had over 4th place. ....and then afterwards somebody says they've just announced Bristol were third, and we're in the Mendip tent and can hardly hear the PA, nobody was sure, Mike was urging us to find our shirts and get to presentation, Keith had managed get a copy of the results and there was general air of hesitation among the runners. Anyway Keith had it in print and the presentation had already started so off we went. It's really nice how kind all the Midlands people were, Notts were second but to have two clubs in the top three on home soil (or mud) meant a lot to them, Mick Robinson presented our medals and when I told Carolyn Franks that I couldn't believe how lucky we had been, she pointed out it wasn't luck! ...OK so we were a long way behind Leeds and Notts, but now we know we can win medals at national level, with a few more people healthy, fit and available for the relays who knows how it will work out - at least we're playing now.