Sally Shewell missed the bronze medal by just four seconds at the Kent Masters Cross Country Championships at Dartford on Saturday 3rd January. Sally was contesting the W55 category and was the closest SAC runner to a medal on the day. Sally was also our only female representative at the event. All the women's categories, together with the M60 and M70+ men, competed in the same 5k race, with Richard Pitcairn-Knowles joining Jim Fitzmaurice in the M70s. Jim was sixth and Richard eleventh.
In previous years, Sevenoaks AC has picked up medals in the M60 team race, but for various reasons, including injuries and emigration, Simon Hallpike contested the category on his own, finishing twenty-second.
The first race of the day, over 9k, was for the M50s. This was the only section where SAC fielded a full team. In a high-quality race, Chris Desmond was fourteenth, John Stevens thirty-first (seventh M55) and Duncan Cochrane sixty-fifth (twenty-first M55), with the team tenth of sixteen complete teams. The final race, also over 9k, also saw a depleted Sevenoaks team, with Dan Witt our sole runner finishing thirty-fifth.
The full results are here.