AFTER a long wait the Hertfordshire Cross Country Championships went ahead on Sunday at Cassiobury Park in Watford. The original planned fixture had to be postponed due to the adverse weather in January and whether it be a good thing or not the champions

AFTER a long wait the Hertfordshire Cross Country Championships went ahead on Sunday at Cassiobury Park in Watford.

The original planned fixture had to be postponed due to the adverse weather in January and whether it be a good thing or not the championships was rescheduled for the very end of the winter calendar with a lot of athletes tired and running out of motivation.

St Albans Athletic Club's middle distance squad came up trumps again with only a few members missing with rugby, football, netball and Duke of Edinburgh commitments clashing with the fixture.

This again showed the extraordinary commitment amongst the members, a quality that any club would be proud of.

The club came home with a total of five trophies with the U11s boys and girls, U13s girls, U15s boys and girls all enjoying victory.

Individual gold medals went to Adam Wilmshurst (U11s), Victoria Pritchard (U13s), James McMurray (U15s) and Laura Farrar (U17s) with a silver medal in the U11s category going to Eleanor Hobbs despite her being a year younger. There was an outstanding performance from Naomi Hodson who finished fourth in the U15s girls who was also a year younger than her competitiors.

The U11s teams as with the rest of the season began the morning with four complete girls teams running.

Not content with just the gold medal they went on to win the silver and bronze as well. This is a great base to the whole squad and a solid foundation for growth and development. Eleanor Hobbs, Phoebe Wilkinson and Tabitha Weddell were members of the gold medal team.

The boy's gold medal team consisted of Adam Wilmshurst, Adam Pritchard and Ricardo James.

In the U13s girls gold medal team St Albans were represented by STAGS duo Victoria Pritchard and Pippa Bailey in first and eighth place respectively and Abbie West of Sir John Lawes in fourth.

The whole squad are relieved that all the hard work over the cross country circuit is now at an end but are looking forward with optimism for the track season which begins in May with the County Championships in Stevenage.