Coming in thick and fast! This is the penultimate race in the Sunday League calendar and your chance to experience the fabled ski slope.

SUNDAY 12 JANUARY 2014
10 AM START
(hosted by Warrington Road Runners)

TOWN PARK, RUNCORN

Great course, not technical and with probably just the right amount of mud by Sunday. Now the important bit:

Both teams are currently in 3rd place, and both with an excellent chance to improve on that, so ALL HANDS ON DECK Striders!

Absolutely EVERYONE makes a difference who turns up, and if you haven't tried xc before this is an excellent course to make your debut.

Here is also some handy info from the lovely Gill Colleen from Warrington Road Runners, our hosts for this event:

The course, as in previous years is adjacent to Brookvale Sports Centre which has again been booked for use of showers and hospitality. There are good car parking facilities.

Brookvale Recreation Centre
Barnfield Avenue
Murdishaw
Runcorn
WA7 6EP

Access to the course is from the back of the sports centre via Stockham Lane (from 9:00 am) near the all weather pitches and access will be from the rear doors of the sports centre. Once on Stockham Lane, approximately 600m on the right (opposite Woodfalls Farm) is a footpath that leads into Town Park and the start/finish area of the course. Signs/marshal to the start of the course will be in place.

Runners are advised to allow sufficient time to get to the start (approx 10 minute walk) and toilet facilities are only at Brookvale Sports Centre.

Course suitable for spikes or studs. The course is approximately 5 miles, over two laps with a minor additional change from previous years and will be marshalled at that point.

Runners are requested to remove muddy footwear before entering the sports centre

The Gymnasium has been booked where sandwiches and drinks will be provided while results are calculated and announced.

Hope to see a good turn out and fingers crossed for plenty of mud.

***

Come on then Striders!

THE WORLD BELONGS THOSE WHO TURN UP

Can i suggest a car share/convoy leaving garston sportsy at 0830. I can provide 2 seats in the van. post below if you either want a seat or can provide seats

I'd like or offer a lift - will be there at 8,30

I'll be down for 8:30 at the sports centre, am willing to car share. I've either got room for 3 people or can jump in someone else's car.

Guys, if I can jump in with someone would be appreciated, be at the club about 8 20, cheers

Another big turnout for the Sunday League both in overall numbers and for PLS!

216 finishers today, 144 men and 72 women - on a proper cross country course by all accounts. Tough day out there today, well done to all who turned up to keep PLS flying high in the overall classification.

Men's team was 4th today with Martin leading us home in a brilliant 3rd place. This takes the lads to 2nd place overall!

Women's team was 6th on day, slipping to 4th place overall.

Fantastic result for PLS in what is an increasingly popular and competitive competition. Today we received the news that next year Tatton Runners will also join the Sunday league, which is going from strength to strength.

Well done all, you looked even more beautiful than usual covered in mud.

And nearly everyone remembered their trousers.

We're on the home straight now, only Birchwood to go on Sun 9 Feb - so put that date in your diary and let's make the last one count!!!

Well done everyone who ran today. Another great turn out from PLS and some brilliant results!

With a few more clubs taking part in the Sunday League these days, is there any scope to add a couple more races to the season in future? If not, how about adding in some new race venues - if a couple of the new clubs could host a race next season?

Any views?

Hi Martin
Bizarrely enough Tony Man got me thinking about that earlier, when he observed we may have issues with parking/logistics etc. at events next year. I had a quick look before and noticed that numbers for men have gone up by a third and those for women almost doubled compared to my first season (2008-09). With all the new clubs now on board there may be scope for something of a rotation of venues. Not sure if there is enough space/time in the calendar to accommodate additional fixtures but nothing ventured nothing gained etc.

If anyone has any suggestions please speak up. We are due to meet up to discuss how to better interact with the L&D next year, and it would be an ideal time to put any initial suggestions to all the other clubs.

With the decline of the L & D XC at the same time as the popularity of the Sunday League grows, an obvious solution would be to combine both leagues, especially as some of the venues are used by both leagues and many runners now compete in both.

The solution to the logistical issues this would create could be solved by splitting the clubs into two leagues, as occurs in track and field, with promotion and relegation.

Either way, if there is an increase in XC fixtures the club may have to review its Championship rule about road race times achieved when a XC is taking place not being eligible for the Club Champs

Only worry I'd have with divisions is that if you were a top runner for a small club in the lower division, would you want to turn up and have no competition to challenge you each race? The likelihood would be that they might join a bigger club to have better races for? The good thing about the league being 1 at the minute is that you get that great mix of all abilities from various clubs all competing against each other in their sub-groups in the race, which undoubtedly leads to that community feeling we have in the league which I've not experienced anywhere else. I'd be inclined instead to have 2 fixtures each date with the clubs split between the two, so you'll race every club over the course of the season but not necessarily each fixture.

Prefer to have a single league rather than two smaller divisions.

They have small divisions in Scottish football and just look at the state of the game up there! Better to have a bigger league with plenty of competition right through from top to bottom.

Back to running - I reckon the more runners there are, the more enjoyable the races are as you have people battling it it for positons right through the field. Maybe increasing the number of counters to 8 or 9 would add even more interest?

If there are more races then maybe they could change the rules around scoring so your best 6 out of 8 count or maybe you get a bonus for doing all of them in a season.

Be good if Lpool Harriers could put an XC race on at any of the city parks. Must be some nice places to run an XC race round Chester too.

Like Martin & Neil I prefer one division. Otherwise good runners from the smaller clubs would never get a look in and I really like the mix of abilities currently on show in the Sunday League.

In terms of L&D they suggest they have a similar number of finishers to the Sunday League (I haven't looked at their results to validate this statement), so not sure about it being in real trouble, but one of the suggestions on the table right now is to possibly share one fixture next year, so watch this space on this one.

I also like the thought of increasing the number of counters as all of the clubs seem to have increased in size. I might do some numbers to take with us when we meet up.

Those are just my opinions, in terms of bringing this together I will try to summarise all the suggestions in a short list later, if you agree it represents what we think we can take that to the meeting.

As soon as I have more details of the meeting I will see if I can get either the captains or perhaps one or two other volunteers to come along and be part of the discussion if the captains are not available.

I think successfully lobbying to extend the amount of counters to 8 or 9 would prety much guarentee we would never be able to compete with the current back to back champions. which is fine if you want to have a mirror image of the scottish premier league. (see what i did there). Personally I think the way to generate more interest is to try to win a few more fixtures. As a result the b team would also place higher

Run faster. I'll put that on the list too, Dale.

The pont I as making was that I think we should take more counters off the list. but if you want to add run faster thats fine by me

I can see neither of us are ever going to make jokers corner - in other news I am not going to take any suggestions anywhere without checking them out with the committee first, hence the list. Chill. I'm an accountant. I double check everything

Bring it on more dates, let's do cross country all year round actually!
there won't be any parking problem then believe me!

seriously thought, this is one of the few country in the world where you can really consider that....
works for the multi terrains!

honestly, what do you need road racing for these days?!


Ciao
Simo

Get the tazer, he's finally flipped

He's been like this for years Mitch.

Simo would have preferred it before we had roads in this country - funny thing is, it was the Romans who started to build 'em

And look how the romans ended up....
extinct!!
like road racing pretty soon

So if we race on road coz they were invented, we should race on wheels, aqueducts, fire, sliced bread, the next best thing after sliced bread...
I could carry on but I think you've got it!


Ciao
Simo