MIddlesex Masters Cross-Country Report

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by Alastair Aitken

On the 27th of March, the course at Trent Park was mostly tufted grass land a little bit undulating with a little mud, some woods to negotiate but still quite lot of fast running in the cool conditions.

To me the over 60’s had a really impressive couple of runs. The winner from  the Harrow team was Mark Cursons, a young 60 year old, who was 3rd in the British Masters Championships CC , who considered his best race was winning the first Reading Half Marathon in 1983, when he was 21, in just under 68 minutes but, he has been a consistent club runner since. In 2nd place, moving through after the first half a lap was 63 year old Chris Finill, who is always interesting to talk to. Having run every single London Marathon, usually under three hours, he nearly came unstuck in 2018 when he had a bad fall early in the race and broke his arm: “Arm, very painful. I wanted to keep going. I had completed 37 London’s so I was not going to walk away from it. I had previously hoped to do 3 hours but to finish was the main thing.” Could he see himself in 2022 running inside 3 hours again? “From the way I have been running recently I think I can.” Chris ran across America. At his age is he still after other goals? “Land’s End to John ‘O’Groats next year in May. I am not going to kill myself. I’ll do 30 miles a day!”

In the first M40/50 race, after 2 Hertfordshire runners the next three were all from Highgate Harriers. Sion Parry (53) now the Middlesex CC Masters Champion. He came back into running with Highgate Harriers, because his two daughters Mia & Jess were at the club. He first started running when he was 12/13 and can remember running in Essex with Matt Yates and Rob Denmark but, then went travelling and stopped running and now enjoys running again. For the women Trent Park AC were the successful F35 team. Anna Critchlow of West 4 won the F45 from Highgate stalwart Louise Faherty and Sabina Russell was another successful Highgate woman being first over 55 of six Middlesex runners in her category.