3 golds and a bronze. Hugely impressive.

Written by David Jones on 12/02/2026. Posted in News

The Magnificent 7.
L to R: David Teasdale, Bogdan Ene, Huw Crosweller, Pete Sugden, James Day, Will Mayes and Dougie Garnett.

Last weekend saw the finish of the league cross country season with our juniors, ladies and men all competing.

We have a report on the men’s fixture from Malcolm Bowyer. Unfortunately the junior results for the season as a whole aren’t available yet. Hopefully we will have a report next week, together with a report on the ladies fixture.

The results for the respective fixtures are below but these do not include a round up of the complete season.

Juniors:

https://www.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16418&RId=1002

Ladies:

https://www.racetecresults.com/results.aspx?CId=16418&RId=985

Paula Williams enjoyed considerable success at the Scottish Athletics Masters in Glasgow last weekend, picking up 3 golds and a bronze from her 4 events.

We have an interesting piece on the South Warwickshire Primary Schools Sportshall Championships, with some 500 juniors competing and our very own Sandy Green, Carolyne Johnston, Lucy Edwards, Danny Tolhurst and Paul Bearman ensuring that they ran smoothly.

It’s a new year, so a new challenge for Mark Barker, our Ultra runner supreme. This time Mark was on the South Downs in Hampshire, battling the wind, rain and mud in the Hibernal Hills Ultra. His report made me feel somewhat guilty having moaned about the weather at recent track sessions.

Clare Goodwin, our new Press Correspondent, has got off to a flying start. Her inspired decision to submit a report on last week’s Track Mile races has resulted in considerable coverage in this week’s Stratford Herald and great publicity for our club

Take care.

David Jones

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Job done!
Dougie Garnett, who has enjoyed a superb XC season, was our first runner to finish in 5th place overall out of 193 competitors. He was also 1st junior to finish.
Pretty impressive.

Close but not close enough.
The photo above shows that our Men’s team just missed out on promotion in 5th place. The promoted teams’ are highlighted in green

Birmingham and District Invitation Cross Country League

Division 2 – Race 3

Pink Court, Gloucester.

Report – Malcolm Bowyer

It was the last cross country race of the season for our men in Division 2, on a very wet and flat four lap course and we were in with a chance of promotion.

The winner was Luca Stubbs of Loughborough Students in 36.37 and there were 193 competitors.

Unfortunately we couldn’t raise enough runners to make up a B team, so it was left down to the magnificent seven to run their best to keep us in with a chance of promotion to Division 1.

We had 3 juniors and 4 senior runners.

The 3 junior runners took the lead for us on the first lap with Dougie Garnett. Hot on this spikes was William Mayes. Then close behind was the final junior James Day.

Unfortunately on the second lap James Day had to withdraw from the race. Thankfully he has made a full recovery.

This now left 6 Stratford runners in the race to make up the A team. Veteran cross country runners Huw Crossweller and David Teasdale never gave up, making up places over the four laps, with newcomer Bogden Ene and the ever reliable Peter Sugden making up the sensational 6 in our A team.

Our runners’ were all a credit with excellent times considering the wet conditions.

Dougie Garnett finished 1st for Stratford and 5th overall in 38.21. Dougie was also 1st junior overall to finish. Will Mayes finished in 12th place in 39.54, Huw Crossweller finished in 46th place in 43.21, David Teasdale was 75th place in 45.28, Bogden Ene was 118th place in 47.53 and finally Peter Sugden was 151st finishing in 51.59.

As ever presents throughout the season, Huw and David finished 25th and 33rd Senior for the season as a whole, out of 379 who competed. Dougie and Will both finished in the top 10 juniors despite missing a race.

Stratford A/c had a excellent turnout over the last two races, just missing out on promotion to division 1 by one place.

Stratford A team finished 5th out of 11 teams with 840 points, and Stratford’s B team finished 11th out of 13 teams.

Here’s to the next season of 2026/2027.

For the full results and season’s round up please follow the link below:
https://www.birminghamccleague.co.uk/images/stories/bdccl/articlepdfs/XC_League_Archive/2025-26/2026-02-07-M2.pdf

Paula Williams with her 3 golds and a bronze. Not a bad day at the office!

Paula Williams on the podium with fellow 60m competitors.

4J Scottish Athletics National Masters

These Championships took place on Sunday, February 8, 2026, at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow. The event featured competition in five-year age bands from V35 upwards.

Our very own Paula Williams enjoyed considerable success, finishing the day with 3 golds and a bronze from her 4 events.

Paula recorded a time of 10.27 to win her age category in the 60m hurdles and 8.68 to win the 60m.

Her shot put gold was as a result of a 13.63 throw, over 2 metres further than the 2nd placed thrower and she claimed a bronze in the 200m with a time of 30.58.

Paula commented that the Championships were really friendly and the Emirates stadium was brilliant.

She was testing her calf from a strain in November (and re-strain from January) and a shoulder strain.

Thankfully both of them held up and she believes she can push training a little more before the European Masters Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland at the beginning of April

Year12/13 Leaders including, from SUAAC, starting at back row 2nd left, Sandy Green, Carolyne Johnston, Lucy Edwards, Danny Tolhurst and Paul Bearman

The South Warwickshire Primary Schools Sportshall Championships.

Report – Paul Bearman

As a part of our ongoing Club/School links programme, we have supported the South Warwickshire Primary Schools Sportshall Championships for well over 20 years and in fact, for a few years, used to run the various heats to keep it running after government funding was withdrawn.

However, with new government funding a few years ago Andy Sandford, the School Games Organiser for South Warwickshire, took over the organising of the heats but coaches from SUAAC continue to run the events.

This year 25 schools took part in 3 heats at Stratford and Kineton schools, supported by their excellent Year12/13 Leaders and from SUAAC Sandy Green, Carolyne Johnston, Lucy Edwards, Danny Tolhurst and myself as the “ringmaster” controlling the programme.

The championships give the children of the various sized schools and irrespective of ability, the opportunity to represent their school and enjoy the atmosphere and thrill of competing; the majority of whom would probably never have that opportunity in other sports.

The championships have been a happy hunting ground for recruitment of new junior members over the years, and with circa 500 youngsters taking part, including many of our current members, amidst deafening cheering and excitement, Carolyne Johnston is expecting another influx of enquiries.

Mark Barker

The Hibernal Hills Ultra

Report – Mark Barker

When I entered this ultra, I had not anticipated, in the lead up to the event that there would be 41 consecutive days of rain, a 50% increase of the average rainfall!

Then again this was a winter ultra and this was all about toughening myself up, on the basis that if I can do these 50k winter ultras, the longer distance Ultras in the summer should be a cinch!

The race was a circular route, over the South Downs in Hampshire, as the name of the event suggests, it had its fair share of hills with 1200m of elevation.

The event was operated by UK Ultras, who are the hosts of many great events on the South Downs throughout the year.

The good thing with their events is that they take some of the stress out of the day, with generous cut offs, routes well marked and a great food & drink selection at the checkpoints.

The day, unsurprisingly, started with heavy rain, looking on the bright side, an opportunity to put the expensive wet weather gear to good use!

The race started with 131 runners setting off up into the hills. My strategy for the race was simple, run when I could! I was expecting mud and that is exactly what I got.

Much of the route was up and over the downs, through fields and forest trails, usually very runnable terrain but with the soft ground, it was continuous mud and flooded bridleways. This certainly was not going to be my quickest 50k, however I started well and was keeping up with a group that were in front of me.

The rain stopped about 2 hours into the race. Into the first checkpoint at a village hall, I got the wet gear off and a change of socks!

The second half of the race is where the steepest of the hills came and more mud! Some sections were so slippery, despite the trail shoes, I was sliding around trying to stay on my feet. Another section was ankle deep mud, it felt like it was never going to end.

I had lost sight of the other runners who had been in front, partly because I spent too long in the 2^nd checkpoint and partly as I was taking no risk on the steep downhills, so I spent much of the time not seeing anyone other than the friendly UK Ultra team at the checkpoints.

This was a tough challenge, I am not sure if it was the physical aspect of what felt like wading through treacle for 50k, or the mental challenge of the conditions on such as miserable day. Whatever it was, I was delighted to cross the finish line, finishing 7:25:29, which happened to be 3 seconds faster than the windy 50k Ultra at Eastbourne in December!

It was another unique experience at these great events for me, which I hope pays off later in the year! As they say, you do not have to be crazy to be an ultra-runner, but if you are, it certainly helps!

The Stratford upon Avon Herald

It was an inspired decision by Clare Goodwin, our new Press Correspondent, to submit a story on last week’s Track Mile to The Herald. Her submission is heavily featured, thus giving great publicity to our club.