David Griffiths reflects on the Inter Counties Cross Country where Keith Gerrard gained his international selection

Senior Men – A magnificent run from Keith Gerrard to finish 6^th out of 292 finishers, arguably the best performance of his career to date. He hung back a little for the first 2k, holding a position between 15^th and 20^th, but by the second of the four laps he was right on the shoulder of the leader Frank Tickner. After Tickner and eventual winner Andy Vernon broke away from the rest of the pack in the second half of the race, a great battle developed for 3^rd place between five athletes. Keith looked in superb form throughout and was in with a chance of the bronze medal right up until the final stages. For the first time I can ever remember, Keith declared himself to be completely satisfied with his run. Perfectionist that he is, he usually feels he could have done something slightly better, but on this occasion he was 100% happy with his performance. He was part of the Lancashire team that won the silver medal in the team event.

Kevin Loundes (seen above on Sky TV in the early stages) finished 131^st in his debut appearance in the event and was disappointed with his run, missing out on being one of the 6 counters for the team race. He ran the first lap really hard – too hard as it transpired - and by halfway round lap 2 he had lost his rhythm and was going backwards through the field. He showed great determination to keep battling away through the pain, and will perhaps have learned more from this race than his many good ones this winter. I predict now that he will do very well in this race next year.

Under 17 Ladies - Gemma Astin started strongly and was holding a top 20 position in the early stages of the race. Unfortunately she developed a knee problem after about 6 minutes’ running which forced her withdrawal from the race shortly afterwards. Fingers are firmly crossed that it’s nothing too serious.

Under 15 Girls – Sarah Astin finished in 49^th place out of 307, not a bad performance at all considering she has been unable to train hard for many months following long-term injury problems. She ran a very consistent race and looked comfortable throughout, her only problem being a lack of basic fitness at present. The field was so tightly packed in this race that a time 20 seconds faster would have seen her finishing 27 places higher! This performance suggests that once she is able to get back into full training, she has every chance of recapturing her previous form.