ON Sunday 11th January, 23 Chepstow Harrier's women and 17 men raced for their club at the third leisure centre league cross country race in the winter series.

The women's team took the top position out of ten clubs from south east Wales while the Harrier's male team were third. The muddy, undulating course presented interesting challenges for competitors with several runners having to extricate their shoes from the boggy sections.

The cross country race was also Chepstow's first club championship race of the year.

This partly explains the excellent turn out from Harriers eager to accumulate points.

The course was approximately ten kilometres for the men, with four laps of the course, and six kilometres for the women who completed three laps.

There are five races in the series, and teams and individuals accumulate points in each race. The women are currently leading, and the men are second overall. There are just two races remaining, so positions could easily change.

There were also cross country races for the juniors at the event. The Chepstow Harriers' juniors who raced were six year old, Seth Lawson who ran the under 8's 800 metre race, his brother Reuben who was 4th in the under 11 race (and 2nd boy), and Joe and Hannah Lidgett who ran the Under 13 race, with Joe coming third.

Women's team captain Sophie Gilbert said: "I am thrilled that our women won today. It was a tough course.

"Conditions were extremely muddy underfoot and it was very windy.

"To have such a large turnout of our women, outnumbering our men, was simply amazing. We have now consolidated our place in the lead in the series, and hope to maintain our winning form for the last two races.

"It is fantastic that there were races for our junior athletes too and we had some successes there today."

Men's team captain James Blore said: "Coming third out of ten clubs is a good result for Chepstow, but as team captain, I always hope that we will win.

"We had depth, but not strength at the top today. We need all of our top male runners to turn out for the next couple of races. I will be making a big call to arms!

"I know we can do better, and I'm determined that we will finish the series on a high."

Chepstow Harriers are very grateful to Islwyn Running Club for hosting and marshalling this highly successful, well attended event.