As those temperatures get colder and the mud gets thicker – you know it means we’re into proper cross country season…

Despite the sunny outlook on the photo above, it was cold. Very cold. Some might say perfect running conditions, however. The smiles on faces do, however, reflect the great craic and camaraderie that DVRC always takes with them to any and every event.

And it wasn’t even the team banter that caused some of this lot to miss the start of the women’s race… we’re reliably informed there was quite the ‘mix-up’ for the start of the senior women, 20 minutes delay was actually only 12 minutes. As runners were spotted – “they’re running… and they’re women… we’re women, we’re meant to be running” – and off they went!

Newly promoted to the medium pack, was Natasha Powell, Claire Knox and Bex Hewitson – who had no such worries, but probably got to their starter group a little sooner than they would’ve done normally…

When all was said and done – we had some tremendous performances from our stupendous seven – Bex leading us home in 50th place overall, followed by Natasha in 150th and Claire in 179th. Kirsty Robson was next home to make up the first team of four in the XC league tables, 242nd place. This gave us an 8th place team finish on the day – amazing stuff!

Not far behind was Eleanor Shotton in 244th, Ellie Binns in 254th and Sue Urwin in 292nd. All out of 399. All of our DVRC ladies finishing inside the top 300 places – brilliant achievement, on what was a really claggy course (as ever!).

A mixture of injuries, double bookings and premier league football meant we couldn’t quite fill a full male team – with Peter Taylor making his XC debut for DVRC, joined by Sam Spratt, who clearly wasn’t put off from his debut the previous fixture – despite what he might’ve muttered during that second lap… Rounded off with the ever-reliable men’s skipper John Kirby.

Actually, we say ever-reliable… but you’ll notice on the photos that isn’t a brownie in sight. Mr Reliable apparently forgot to pick up the fresh batch that baker extraordinaire, and wife Rachel, had made for the team. Surely a deduction in Grand Prix points beckons…

With the weight of the forgotten brownies on his mind, John still managed to bring our gents home in 343rd place, closely followed by Sam in 362nd and Peter in 519th. A huge field of 552 runners to negotiate in the last race of the day, with the sun setting and mud deepening. Well played, chaps. Well played.

In the boys under 17’s race – we had Luke Kelly once again rocking the DVRC colours – and boy did he do us proud – getting himself an 11th place finish out of a field of 33. Stunning work Luke – going from strength to strength!

Meanwhile earlier in the day, there was time for plenty of our club members to hit the courses of everyone’s favourite 9am-on-a-Saturday pastime… ParkRun! Whitley Bay, Druridge Bay, Chopwell Wood and Denton Dene – it was PB city for Sarah Reay and Chris Morris at Chopwell, along with Chris Hewitson and Beth Ramsden at Denton Dene! Great efforts in yet more sub-zero conditions!

We also had Terry Owens hitting his 100th ParkRun at Chopwell, while daughter Claire Thompson volunteered and made sure to grab us a photo of the legend himself…

Sunday Social took on a new turn, this morning, as a matchy-matchy group took on the start of their journey to an Ultra Marathon next year. Ably supported by 2 hounds, 3 deer, 1 squirrel and a Susan Chambers. Chris Morris led this merry band of misfits round 10.5 miles around the Derwent Walk and Chopwell Wood. If you’d like to get involved, give Chris a nudge and he can inform you of next week’s colour scheme…