National Cross Country Relays

An incredible team performance emerged at the weekend as Thomas Preston alongside ex-students Seb Beedell and Harry Hewitt raced to within 0.12 seconds of a national gold medal. Forming an impressive 3-man team, the runners raced a 3 kilometre crosscountry course, each finishing in under 9 minutes (which would be a stunning time round a flat athletics track!) The race was thrilling; Thomas led during part of his effort eventually finishing the first and most competitive leg of the competition in 7th place. At that point, it would have been very easy for his teammates to over-commit to the effort of trying to close to the leaders but rather than setting off too hard they assuredly and calmly began to hunt down the competition.

The quality and consistency of the three runners really paid dividends: after Seb's leg the team had reached third position and within half of Harry's leg he had caught up to the leader. A downhill surge however opened up a gap again and it all looked done and dusted until one final twist in the tale, within the last 15 seconds of the race Harry closed the 20 metre gap to nothing! Sadly, he had just been beaten by the narrowest of margins. Nonetheless, Harry had ran the fastest leg of the day and wrapped up a national team performance which achieved a silver medal. This is a historic result by the 'Boys from Bourne Grammar School' as they proudly referred to themselves after the race. It was very pleasing to see the pride in their school team and camaraderie developed over many years of racing together. 

From my perspective, I consider myself blessed to have been able to witness the journey the boys have come on. It is particularly worth noting that when they joined the school two of the three were footballers and one was more of an all-rounder. Offering the students the opportunity of consistent racing and the positive influence of older role models has been a large part of enabling them to become such high quality runners. A final deserved shout out to the club they represented during the race (Peterborough and Nene Valley AC) alongside the three coaches who have been instrumental in helping the athletes achieve this level of performance.