Bromley Veterans Cross-Country Sunday 24th March 2013 Sparrows Den, West Wickham
This was the event we’d all been anxiously awaiting. Various BVAC members had been busy in the preceding weeks,
targeting local parkruns and other races, schools, local running clubs, members of the KFL, aunties, grannies and
anyone else who could be persuaded to don a pair of running shoes or a marshal’s bib or bake a cake. As the day
drew nearer, the number of entrants climbed slowly and the wintry weather persisted, with a decidedly snowy forecast
for the fateful weekend; committee members began to wonder if the race would be a whiteout. Sure enough, the day
before brought heavy grey skies and snow, which was wet enough to turn the Bromley parkrun into a grim challenge
and Spring Park Woods into a swamp, but cold enough to remain on pavements and fields. Terry and Simon skated
up to Spring Park on the Saturday afternoon to check out the course. However, Simon is a hardy soul, who has
experienced many a cross-country mud-bath this season, and so the course was declared fit for battle!
Sunday dawned, bringing more snow, but not enough to disrupt the race. A handful of volunteers, wrapped in as many
layers as they could muster, gathered at 8am to set up the course and take the initiative test set by both Barbara &
Colin Pope and Terry McD, who had each kindly brought along their gazebos to provide shelter from the biting wind.
The race was started at 10.30am, by Bromley Veteran’s reliable timekeeper, Richard Farish. I was at a marshalling
point near the top of the woodland and was almost taken by surprise by the arrival of the first runner, the redoubtable
Gavin Kitchingham, flying through thick mud, as if it were a much friendlier surface. (I overheard one runner say as
she ran past that she would never complain about the mud at Bromley parkrun again after experiencing the conditions
at Spring Park Woods!)
As more and more runners appeared, I began to realise that, contrary to our expectation, several runners must have
taken a last-minute decision to enter our race that morning; in total there were 52 runners, with a handful of people
who didn’t make it to Sparrows Den.
The race went well, despite the conditions, and homemade cakes were enjoyed at the finish. Admittedly, there was a
longer delay in presenting prizes than we would have liked, given the bitter cold, but the committee hopes to rectify
that for next year’s race.
1st – Gavin Kitchingham, Orpington Road Runners, 35:31 1st lady – Rachel Bentley, Clapham Chasers, 42:14
Gavin had a clear lead all the way and finished almost a minute in front of second-placed Mike Baron from Swanley &
District A.C. Gavin had run to the event from Farnborough and was running home again after the presentations.
Full results are on our website:
www.bromleyvetsac.org.uk
Many thanks to Barbara Pope for her excellent organisation of the course and marshals and for lending us her
challenging gazebo, to Richard and Maureen Farish for their timekeeping, to Terry for the loan of his gazebo, to Mrs McDonald in helping with the refreshments, to Pat Cliff, for hours of work she put in beforehand in all sorts of ways, to
Adrian for being our official photographer and to James for being bold enough to name the date and start the ball rolling, also to order such impressive-looking medals. Thanks, too, to those of you who turned up on the day to
marshal etc, despite the bitter cold – without all these volunteers there would have been no race
