BRECON AC athletes turned out in force for the recent Welsh Cross Country Championships held for the third successive year on the challenging undulations of Swansea’s Singleton Park.

The day was cold but far better than last year’s incessant rain.

The U13 boys kicked off the day running a 3K course which included all of the hills. Brecon had the second biggest turnout of the day here, behind just hosts Swansea but most of the Brecon boys were in the bottom half of the two year age group unlike their rivals. Jack Organ ran strongly to once again lead the team home with an 11th place finish with Arthur Bell continuing his recent run of good form in 23rd, 29 seconds behind Jack. Tristan Tene-Cumberland (32nd) made his first appearance for a few months and had a great run, particularly in the second half. Isaac Pierce broke into a demanding theatre ‘run’ and proved to be ever reliable as he closed the ‘A’ team scoring at 36th. Making up the ‘B’ team were Cian Aplin (44th), Oscar Davies 49th, Daniel Ricketts 51st and Ollie Rose 58th. All of the boys ran well relative to their current fitness and experience levels and this bodes well for next year when most are still in this age group. 21 clubs were represented and our ‘A’ team placed 5th and the ‘B’ team 9th out of the 9 complete teams.

While there were unfortunately no U13 girls running it was a bonus to see a scoring quartet of U15 girls. While none could realistically expect an individual medal and a team medal was going to be a tall order ‘you never know unless you turn up’. Tiegan Ward (19th) and Leonora Ritson-Walton (24th) are returning to fitness after injury/illness and other commitments while Glesni Powell (30th) and Ruby Carleton (31st) both had one of their better races despite the course being longer and hillier than usual.

Two U15 boys toed the line for Brecon and despite being in the lower half of the age group both did well to place in the top half of the field. Spencer Davies stepped up from schools competition and used the mental strength from his off road cycling to power his way around into 16th place with Ewan Coyle only 26 seconds behind him in 21st place. Hopefully there will be a team built around these two next year.

Evan Price-Davies was the only U17 to take part but he undoubtedly had his best run to date this winter. Finishing 14th out of 26 Ev was much closer to the front end of the race and regular training and racing is now paying off.

It took until the final race, and the appearance of the ‘old-timers’ for the club to win the first medals of the day. The senior race also incorporates the Welsh masters championships in order to boost the numbers taking part. 163 runners of up to 65 years old took part. Mike Pfeiffer had a fantastic run placing 30th overall and was only pipped to M50 gold by the guy immediately in front who finished seven seconds ahead. Mike picked up a second silver as the M45 team of Mike, Martin Shaw (65th) and Charlie Northey (97th) came in 2nd in their category. Mike and Charlie were running down an age group to allow this to happen. There was further ‘silverware’ for the club as the M55 team of Peter Sowerby (78th), Mark Roberts (121st) and M60 Marc Sims (146th) also placed 2nd. M50 Derek Osborne 152nd and M45 Paul Bufton 153rd provided the back-up in case anyone was injured mid race.

In terms of individual masters categories Mike was 2nd M50, Martin 6th M45, Charlie 9th M50, Peter 5th M55, Mark 10th M55, Marc 6th M60, Derek 21st M50 and Paul 23rd M45.

Following the cancellation of the final Gwent League fixture due to snow Brecon AC senior men will be promoted back to the top flight although unfortunately the senior women go in the opposite direction and slip into division 3 – an opportunity to bounce back up and earn some silverware!

Congratulations to Donna Morris and Charlie Northey for taking on the challenge of the Pontypool 10k race recently. Donna had a fantastic performance coming in 19th overall (41.43) but more importantly she was the winning female across all age categories. Charlie was a couple of minutes behind (having raced cross country the day before) and was well up in the M50 category.