BRECON AC’s endurance athletes took to the slopes of Pontypool park for the 4th Gwent League fixture and came away with a number of successes.

For those who like hill running this course would be popular but the smaller fields in most age groups suggested that hill runners are a minority among the cross country fraternity.

U11 Ruby Herdman led the charge for Brecon AC’s youngsters again and her very gutsy fourth place finish cements her third place overall in the league with just one fixture to go. Emily Peltor made massive strides since the previous fixture and came home 10th. Emily now also qualifies for one of the newly introduced Gwent League t-shirts given free of charge to anyone who finishes in the top 10% of their race. Niamh Aplin was a little disappointed with her 34th place having been left at the start but it was still a strong run while Pippa Harris (40th) and Charlotte Lewis (43rd) were again well up in the top half of the field. Bronwen Roberts (80), Freya Roberts (82), Clemmie Davies (87) and Amelie Murphy (102) all showed great determination and make the point that cross country can be a personal thing with personal goals and achievements. The girls team were 5th (out of 52) on the day and are 6th overall.

The clubs U11 boys were headed again by Joe Edwards in 23rd out of 108 finishers with Will Herdman improving to 33rd after another good run. Henry Johnson was 60th with Alex Peltor close behind in 69th. Frankie bell was next home in 86th with Ewan Jones 91st, Ben Fryer 103rd and Osian James 104th. Completion was an achievement in itself. The boys team was 12th out of 47.

Only two of the regular U13 girls and one newcomer started the 2 lap race for this age group. Ava Nicholl showed once again the steady progress that she is making by finishing in the top half of the field at 27th out of 76.

Anna Peltor seemed a bit wary of the hills and her 61st place was a little lower than expected.

Newcomer Efa-Mair Thomas has shown great potential in the local schools league but on this occasion was forced to drop out with a foot injury mid-race. A depleted U13 boys team did however feature a very good run by Arthur Bell who attacked the top five for well over half of the race before fading slightly and dropping a couple of places on the run in to the finish.

Year 7 Ellis Morgan in 37th led a Brecon AC charge as he was followed closely by Iolo Pierce in 39th and Cian Aplin in 42nd. Hurdler Dan Ricketts was next home in 54th with relative newcomer to cross country Tomos James showing great determination to complete in 71st place. The team was seventh on the day but is 10th overall.

Unfortunately, Isaac Pierce was the only U15 athlete from the club, male or female, and with him being at the bottom of his age group his 36th place out of 49 was more than respectable. Next year Isaac!

Tiegan Ward was the only U17 and but for the fact that she is well placed in the league might have missed the race in order to maximise her chances in the Welsh Schools championship just four days later. As it was Tiegan ran around very steadily and finished eighth out of 33 girls although she did badly twist her ankle on the very rocky pathways on one occasion. Tiegan’s competitors all had the same idea and Tiegan remains fourth overall.

There were just three club members out in the senior women’s race although former member Hannah Jarvis who has been doing some of her training with the club again was well placed in 10th out of the 218 finishers despite a mid race foot problem. Donna Morris was again well up the field as she came in at 39th out of 218.

Perhaps more importantly Donna was 14th F35 out of 132. In terms of her overall position Donna is now fourth in the 35-44 category and will be hoping for an end of season medal. F23 Meg Tucker was next home in a much improved 66th position. In terms of her actual category Meg was fifth of 13 which again shows an improvement. F50 Bev Tucker hasn’t been doing a lot of training but showed her commitment by turning out and in finishing 159th (52nd F45+) added a good number of points into the team score.

Brecon’s senior mens team went into the match in severe danger of relegation from division 1 and needed a good display to have even a sniff of survival. Youngster Brychan Price-Davies, making his senior debut, set off in the top five or six and was well up for the first of three laps until his body reacted to running slightly above his threshold and he slipped back quickly to settle again in the high teens. Quietly slipping up the field as he found his level was Austin ‘the flying farmer’ Davies who was making his first appearance at cross country since the end of 2017. Despite being relatively early in his return to training Austin, now 54, relished the hills and finished in an excellent 20th out of the 289 finishers.

M40 Robin Woods was only just over a minute behind Austin in 36th place and this must be a relief for Robin after suffering a difficult injury before Xmas. Michael Holloway was almost within touching distance of Robin as he crossed the line two places and 10 seconds behind. The ‘A’ team scoring was completed by Evan Price-Davies who, in 54th place, was about 1min40 behind Mike. The ‘B’ team on this occasion was led home by Gareth Lawrence in an improved 74th while Phil Morris in 79th didn’t appear to like the course and had undoubtedly his worst showing of the winter but will hopefully bounce back quickly.

M55 Peter Sowerby consolidated his high placing in the overall M55 rankings as he slogged it out into 119th. Another M55 Mark Roberts was next home in 189th and despite there being only two in this age group the points scored ensured that the team remains second but with a much reduced cushion to third. Peter is now third overall M55 with a comfortable gap to fourth. Charlie Northey (M50) returned to action with a 213th place finish just ahead of M40 Matt Scanlon who made his second appearance of the season and crossed the line in 225th.

When the all ages team scores were released Brecon were in a very impressive third place of the 12 teams in division 1. The glimmer of hope has become more of a moonbeam as the points scored were enough to move the club up to 10th place overall, just above the relegation zone but with any one of four clubs likely to be joining Cardiff University dropping into division 2. Another good turnout is needed for the final fixture on March 2.