WADAC athletes at the Masters Inter-Area XC challenge

The Inter-Area challenge was these year hosted by South West Vets and held at Kings Park Bournemouth, over the same course as the Hampshire XC league. It was a perfect day for running with good conditions underfoot and great fun for all. The exciting "everyone in the same race over the same course and distance" format provides a great chance for all ages and genders to compete head to head with the added spice of the final team scores being decided on age-corrected times. But first of all the scratch race.....we had 7 WADAC runners and some interesting race within a race match-ups....Franklyn Young vs Kathy Bailey? Steve Oliver vs Sam Parkinson? Not easy to pick the winners and for the ladies there was the added pleasure of 3 big laps through the woods rather than the faff of small loops round the football pitches.In the end Kathy (2nd lady, 1st W45) powered past Franklyn (1st V55) on the third lap to take the WADAC line honours. Steve was unflustered by the usual flying start from Sam Parky to hold sway as our third finisher.Turning to the real race - the inter-area challenge based on age-corrected times. The best performer on the day was a W65 from Southern Counties and the three best scoring men were all V70's. It is an interesting format which keeps everyone honest (no cruising around thinking only of finishing position) and allows the best runners of whatever age to score for their team.There is a certain amount of local advantage for the home team (after all Bournemouth is a long way from Newcastle) but nevertheless South West Vets won the event from Vets AC and Southern Counties Vets. Congratulations to Kathy Bailey, Sam Parkinson, Joy Radford, Carrie Oliver, Franklyn Young and Steve Oliver who all scored for SWVets. Congratulations also to new WADAC member, Kay Noyce, who scored for the Southern Counties Vets team.