"The National" x-country on Parliament Hill, London is often referred to as the iconic x-country to do and this Saturday's set of races did not disappoint.  With great weather conditions and mud around most of the hilly course it was a proper test of the athletes x-country skills.  Trafford athletes were out in force across most of the events.

In the U13 Boys race Thomas Daly, who enjoys the hills, found himself in the bottom half of the 318 finishers after the first hill, but he constantly moved through the field to finish 40th only a minute behind the winner.  Ethan O'Brien (94th) was hanging on to Thomas as he came past finishing only a few seconds behind and with backup from Thomas Fotheringham (229th), Daniel White (230th) and Joe Bowden (300th) the Trafford team finished 18th overall and 4th Northern Team.

In the U15 Girl’s race Sarah Smith (165th) thoroughly enjoyed her first ever "National". In the boys U15 race Adrian White (20th) ran well and was always in around 20th place, just not quite close enough to the lead group to contend with the leaders.  Ralphie Rome (136th) was in the thick of it amongst the 343 finishers with Sam Ingleby-Castleton 172nd.

In the U17 Women’s race Rachel Bowden (65th) used her abilities on hills to move through for her best run in the National and there were further good runs from Isobel Thomas (129th) and Rafaella Ingleby-Castleton (172nd).

In the U17 Men's race the team had high hopes of medalling but illness and injury reduced the team’s chances and when Pio Aron twisted his ankle at the end of the first small lap whilst in the top 30 the team medals had gone but the team were still 7th overall and top Northern Team.  The course certainly seems to have suited those runners with a Fell running background and after pacing himself up the first hill in 90th place Jay Hutchinson (an England Fell Runner) moved through in the first mile to latch onto the lead group. This whittled down to 6 that eventually split up in the final 2km.  Jay holding on to 6th in the final downhill to finish only 10 seconds behind 2nd place.  Three years ago when the National was last held at Parliament Hill Jay finished 246th in the U15 Boys race.  With this kind of progress Jay is on to do better than his dad Mike who was 3rd in the U20 National in 1986. Another athlete who seemed to relish the muddy, Hilly conditions was Evan Lewis. Last September in the delayed U15 Boys National he was 79th, but he has wintered well and even though he has moved up to the U17 age group he halved that position holding on well to finish 43rd.  Tim Ye had a sold run in 92nd place maintaining his record of always making the top 4 Trafford runners in the National.  Tio Austin (112th) and Fin Dobson Emma’s (127th) struggled with illness and injury still managed good positions, then came Archie Greenwood (190th), Evan Horwell (243rd), Thomas Harris (286th) and Atticus Jones (303rd).

In the U20 Women’s race Eleanor Nicholson had an excellent race in the tough conditions finishing 100th.

In the Men’s U20 race it was a very tough 10km race as the mud got deeper.  Josh Watson (70th), Luke Carrington (123rd) and Toby Robinson (155th) all ran strongly against the 190 finishers.

Trafford Men just had Jeff Prest (499th) and Joe Bentall (1031st) competing but in the Women’s event Trafford had one of their best Team performances for several years finishing 9th overall team and 3rd Northern team.  Beth Reid's recent good form continued as she was always to the fore of the race holding on to a brilliant 42nd place.  Vicki O'Meara came through to finish 82nd, just overtaking Amelia Williams in 97th.  They were backed up by Kate Meeson (178th), Ruth Beresford (463rd) and Sue Exon (792nd).

Click here to see the full results.