Last Sunday the sandy woods xc (zandboscross) took place in Deurne. This race contains a steep sandy ‘bump’ at the beginning of the course which had to be scaled during each lap. Which was manned by a bunch of supporters to make sure everybody got the mental support to make it up the hill. After this the course proceeded through some nice, slightly rolling, narrow paths through the woods.
Battling cold weather, headaches, injuries and slight illnesses, a bunch of Gauls showed up and ended up performing very well!
During the recreational race (which started quite early), Awital won the short run which consisted of 2 laps of 2.4km! She got a bag filled with groceries as her prize! Inge also joined the short run and finished in a 5th place. Iris tested her new running watch during the longer cross and finished in a solid 9th place.
Next up was the long cross. In which Tom, Finn and John participated. During the fast start Tom managed to get up front with Teun from running team Eindhoven. However after 2 (of four) laps, Teun managed to accelerate a bit where, errr, Tom didn’t. Tom did manage to finish in second place though. Finn was closely following Tom, and was doing very well. Near the end he did get slightly worried as one of his former training friends caught up with him. Luckily enough, Finn still had enough oomph left in his legs and managed to accelerate a bit and won from his former training partner. John was slightly worried as during the warming up with Tom his hamstring injury started to acting up again. He starter a bit slower because of this, however during his 4th lap the cold must have numbed the muscles resulting in the pain subsiding. Because of this he managed to accelerate during this final lap and overtook a couple of competitors.
Casper, Bouke, Melissa and Bart participated in the short cross. Casper started clever and conservative and stuck behind a fast runner from GVAC for the first 400m orso, at which point he seemed to had gotten bored and increased the pace to run the remaining 4.4km solo. Bart had been enjoying his off-season, and was planning to start proper training again soon. However, during the race he managed to run very fast finishing in a strong 5th place! Middle distance runner Bouke finished shortly after Bart in a 8th place. Impressive considering the short cross wasn’t particularly short at 4.8km. Melissa wasn’t feeling entirely fit, but decided to participate regardless albeit with adjusted expectations . She managed to keep a good posture, and still managed to finish in 4th place!
After the race all participants received a well-earned chocolate letter (due to Sinterklaas). After which we managed to return to Eindhoven where we could get some much needed warmth.
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