The Northern Cross Country Event – January 2008

A Marshall’s Perspective.

A cold, very windy Roundhay Park, Leeds, provided an ideal setting for this event, providing a challenging, undulating course for nearly one thousand athletes, which included the famous hill 60. A number of our Club athletes turned out, senior ladies and men and juniors, well done to you all (results on website).

Roundhay Park is massive, nearly 9 square miles in total, with much of it in use for the Northerns. However, have you ever wondered how such a great event comes together, here then is an interesting snapshot:

Races of this size have to be pre-planned two years in advance and in fact as I learned on Saturday, the Nationals will be at Roundhay in two years time, what a great opportunity. Needless to say the park has to be booked and an organising committee formed at least twelve months before the event. Roles include, liaison with the emergency services and local authority, risk assessment, catering, mobile toilets, finance, the list is endless. A total of 500 plastic posts had been provided from various clubs and 12,000 metres of tape purchased.

This year Leeds City AC led the course organisation, our Club received a letter last November asking if we would be one of 16 Clubs needed to set out and marshal a section of the course.

The letter was passed to me and fortunately Dave Grayson, Pete Wade and a friend of mine Dave Jones agreed to represent our Club with me. Strangely, this is a first for Doncaster AC but an important gesture to raise our Club profile in the region. The sections of course are allocated according to experience and number of marshals. As first timers we were given a fairly straight forward half mile to look after.

Dave Jones and I attended a briefing and a walk around the course at Roundhay Park in mid December, our section of the course was allocated on that date.

Our team of marshals left Doncaster at 7.30am as we had to be on site at Roundhay by 8.30am and our section fully marked out by 9.30am. We then had to telephone the safety officer on completion, who inspected the course for any additional hazards. We were given two crossing points to manage as well, from the first race at 11am to last race at 3.30pm, getting a bite to eat and toilet visits proved challenging.

Within minutes of wearing the marshal’s tabard, reminded me of my working days, as everybody assumes you are the fountain of all knowledge. Questions such as, where is registration? Do you know where the Wakefield tent is? Have you found a brown glove? I also received an abrupt shot across the bows from a rather smart well spoken lady who blamed me for the all of the illegal parking; luckily my past training came in handy – she was perfectly right, I was wrong and she deserved an apology, maybe that was married life experience, whatever it was I had been her pound of flesh and I never saw her again. 

One of the most enjoyable parts of marshalling was being able to watch the various races, with some awesome performances, from the juniors upwards. The highlight for me was the start of the senior men’s race, involving over 600 runners, which stretched out over 1200 metres of the course at the initial stages. The leaders represented the usual top clubs, Leeds and Bingley AC, I was inspired enough to think that one day Doncaster AC could be up there as well, a little ambition and aspiration is all we need.

We will undoubtedly be asked again, so if you would like to represent the Club, as a marshal, in the future, please let me know.

Kev

On behalf of Dave Grayson, Pete Wade and Dave Jones

See Photo Album for more photos

**UPDATE**

Just got a message from John Lunn, Leeds AC, the Northerns Event organiser, saying many thanks for marshalling Saturday, will our Club support the Nationals at Roundhay in 2010? May seem a long way off but these things need long term planning - I have said we will support this.

 

Doncaster AC results

Senior Men 12K
Place, Name, Time
212, M Page, 46:48
651, I Taylor, 66:33

Senior Women 8K
Place, Name, Time
208, D Fletcher, 38:00
237, l Leivers, 39:47
247, K Tait, 40:44
267, A Page, 42:49
280, J Parkin, 45:37
Team Place 28

U17 men 6K
Place, Name, Time
26, J Clark, 21:24

U15 Girls 4K
Place, Name, Time
105, K Frost, 16:34

U13 Boys 3K
Place, Name, Time
90, N Beastall, 12:15
122, A Davies, 12:39

U13 Girls 3K
Place, Name, Time
58, E Frost, 12:45
72, M Blackburn, 12:57
136, K Page, 13:50
209, L Frost, 15:46
Team place 16