Saturday the 3rd of October saw the opening race of the Kent Cross Country season, a KCAA XC League fixture which was held at Capstone Park near Gillingham.

Although conditions were good underfoot Mother Nature ensured that the race was not easy by sending strong winds to challenge the field. SAC fielded runners in three categories, but only the under-15s managed to finish a full team. Dominic Brown 9th, Mads Kjaersgaard 12th and Alistair Bishop 15th combined for an excellent second place in the U15 boys.

Matthew Johnson was our only representative in the U13 boys, but he finished an impressive 24th.

The conditions didn’t seem to put off the Senior Men's winner, Mike Coleman of Maidstone & Medway AC, who romped home in a time of 30:07 for the 10km course, adds Rob Carr. Coleman was a full minute and 3 seconds ahead of the rest of the field which was made up of 157 runners.

Due to combination of injuries, last minute cancellations and late arrival on the day (that would be me! (Rob)), Sevenoaks AC was unable to field a full team of 4 runners in the Senior Men Category but the 3 runners that competed put in good performances in what was a very strong field.

Keith Brown, a regular competitor in the KCAA League finished in 60th place in a time of 37:22. Well done Keith! Keith was closely followed by two very welcome newcomers to Sevenoaks AC - David Knight and James Reader. David finished in 64th place in a time of 37:32 and James was 100th in time of 41:09. David and James have only recently started running with the club on Tuesday nights and are definitely ones to look out for in future. Full results HERE.

The next KCAA XC event is being held at Summerhill School, Tonbridge on Saturday 24th of October. Traditionally we as a club have not had a great turnout for the KCAA XC League. I may be wrong but believe this is partly because of the perception that the KCAA XC League is for elite runners. This is not true - the KCAA League allows elite and runners of all abilities to compete together. To illustrate this last runner home on Saturday finished in a time of 1:05:16.