Saturday 24 October, Goodwood.

We turned up to Goodwood on Saturday for the first Sussex League of W09/10 season to be greeted by wind, rain and a dense fog. First up was to find the registration tent and enter as well as catch up with many of the local runners. More chatting ensued in the Brighton tent with some of the younger age groups to find out how they ran and the conditions underfoot. The rain had stopped by the time we had completed our warm and with the fog cleared we were set for a good race.

"After a short delay the gun went and the men's race started. The pace was fast at the front with Ben Warren (Hailsham) and Chris Johnson (Crawley) pushing the pace. Just off the pace I could also see James McCarthy in the mix. Despite feeling like I'd gone off quick there were a lot of runners ahead of me at this point. Into the woods I picked off 3 or 4 as their initial pace slowed. As we began the ascent back to Goodwood down I had a bit of resistance from Ed O'Brien (Worthing Striders) but he slipped back and was swallowed up by fellow Brighton runners Andrew Donno and Chris Thomson. Now I was in seventh place with Finn McNally (Phoenix) in my sights. I managed to pull him in by the end of the first lap for sixth place and began to work on putting a gap between us into the woods. The effort to get rid of Finn had brought James McCarthy and Chris Johnson into sight. They were having a close battle and were pulling in James Baker who was just ahead of them in third. I'm aware now that the gap behind me to Andrew Donno wasn't as big as I would have liked. With the legs hurting as we entered the final lap of the downs I thought the best I could do to get rid of Andy was to concentrate on pulling in James McCarthy and Chris Johnson. As we neared the finish the gaps between the runners from 3rd to 8th closed but positions were maintained with James McCarthy managing to outsprint the Crawley 800m runner Chris Johnson." - Matt Bristow

Run of the day has to go to James McCarthy who in his first ever race against Senior opposition managed to mix it with best and come fourth. It was good to see that a number of the top runners got together to do a friendlier warm down lap of the course and discuss how their races went.

Thanks to the younger age groups and Senior Women for hanging around and giving us a shout, it really helped!

Final Result: 1 Ben Warren (Hailsham), 2 Matt Dumigan (Worthing), 3 James Baker (Chichester), 4 James McCarthy (Brighton), 5 Chris Johnson (Crawley), 6 Matt Bristow (Brighton), 7 Andrew Donno (Brighton), 8 Chris Thomson (Brighton). Other Brighton runners: 15 David Benton, 18 Josh Painter, 21 James Tomlinson, 24 Dave Boyce, 25 Zared Hale. This was enough to clinch us the win for the team. Full result.

Next league race is at Plumpton on 28 November, 2.35pm.

Sutton Park, Birmingham, Saturday 17th October 2009

It was a changed team that travelled to Birmingham on Saturday for the National Road Relay championships. Four of the team that qualified from the Southern made way to give the Brighton team a young-ish feel with an average age of 24!

Matt Bristow took on the first leg finishing in a time of 19:06 for the 5.8k, a bit outside his best but a solid run for 64th place. James (Macca) McCarthy on leg two flew round to run the fastest leg by a Brighton runner with 18:41 to move the team to 55th. Andrew Donno was next up and running despite a tight quad still managed 19:50 and only dropped two places. Dan Titheradge may have been rueing his decision to train with the sprinters at Oxford University on Thursday night, a painful leg of 21:34 left us in 68th place. Luke Lambourne ran leg 5 and put in a solid performance given his recent exploits cycling around Europe, the time was 20:10 and the position was 65th.

Mo Farah was also on this leg running for Newham his 16:33 was the quickest of the day. On the final leg Howard Bristow probably ran the hardest of all of the Brighton runners, setting off with real intent he didn't slow down and brought the team up to 59th with a 19:41 effort.

All in all a good day out and a good performance given the changes to the team. We were pretty much down to our last six runners so well done to the guys. Next up for the Senior Men and U20s is the Sussex League Cross Country at Goodwood on Saturday (24 October, 2:35pm).