Saturday saw Robbie don a brand new Hampshire vest having finally outgrown his old one, but a new vest wasn’t to prove a good omen. Conditions in Oxford were good in the air, but very muddy under foot. The course was generally flat and fast in parts with a couple of sharp nasty hills and some very muddy trails thrown in for good measure. All round good XC conditions and Robbie was keen to get started, with thoughts of a top 5 finish in mind. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, Robbie sat with the group trailing the leaders for a long stretch of the race, but when it came to it he simply didn’t have enough to push past them and make something of the race, finishing in 12th place with a time of 15’41” nearly a minute behind fellow Hampshire and winning athlete Zac Mahamed (14’49”). A performance Robbie was dissapointed with, but you can’t win them all and the only thing to take from this is the need to dig in and build in training, with the 2014 races now finished, we are putting this one behind us and looking forward to 3rd January 2015 when it all starts again.

On a merrier note though, it was a good day for Team Hampshire, coming 3rd overall with 41 points, behind second place Kent also on 41 points and 1st place Herts on 30 points. Congratulations to all runners it was a real slog through that mud, and special congratulations to Zac Mahamed for his 1st place and Lachlan Wellington for his 6th place finish.

Team Hampshire – SEAA XC

After a week of coughing and spluttering there was some concern if we’d even make it to Popham and ultimately the decision to race was not unanimous within the Coupland household, fortunately we don’t run a democracy so Robbie headed to Popham to run the race. Mick recommendation to sit back a bit, take it steady and work through the pack were taken on board and by the 1k point Robbie had shuffled forward from 15th at the first corner to 6th, sitting on the shoulders of Tom Bourne and Lachlan Wellington and forming a trailing group about 20m back from the leading group of Zac Mahamed, Chey Kemp and Matt Rawlings. Distances between individuals and groups varied a lot over the second part of the course, but ultimately the positions didn’t change too much, the only noticeable change to that leading 6 was the addition of Ollie Percival (AFD) sliding in behind Robbie’s 5th place and pushing Tom Bourne down to 7th.

Chasing Group at the 2K point.

Another long trip to the outer reaches of world saw us getting our heads down near Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport. The Crowne Plaza offered a good nights sleep, Pizza Hut provided plenty of pre-sleep carbs, and MacDonalds supplied breakfast, talk about a healthy weekend away.

A manic chase down the long, wide starting straight saw Robbie hit the first corner in approximately 30th place, but a serious amount of hard work and determination soon saw him up on the shoulders of the leading group. Some excellent performances on the day ultimately pushed Robbie just outside the top 10 to finish in 11th place, but with the quality line up that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Stampede at Liverpool

Well done to everyone that ran, top 11 shown below.

Matt Willis (9:44)
Reece Curtis (9:46)
Joshua Cowperthwaite (9:48)
Oliver Barbaresi (9:51)
Luke Davies (9:52)
Joe Body (9:54)
Callum Abberley (9:55)
Elliot Dee (9:55)
Joseph Pollard (9:56)
David Mullarkey (9:56)
Robbie Coupland (9:57)

The weather was certainly better at Goodwood this year than it was last year, that said we may have avoided horizontal rain, but we didn’t avoid gale force winds, all adding to the difficulty of the course. Going in to the race Robbie was keen to do better than his HL 2014 debut 4th place, and he succeeded in that desire coming 2nd to Zac Mahamed (14’24”) on the day. The U15 boys race had 54 runners competing 11 short of the numbers that competed in the 1st Hampshire League event of the season, but it was still a strong field in hard windy conditions.

The top 10 included 3 AFD runners, Robbie Coupland – 2nd (14’29”), Ollie Percival – 5th (14’46”) and Sean Pocknee – 7th (14’54) a great performance all round for AFD with Marcus Shantry finishing 11th and Tom Naisby finishing in 29th.

So the current team standings are: (All races count)
1st AFD
2nd Southampton
3rd Reading
4th Portsmouth
5th Wimborne

Current League Individual Standings (Drop 1 result)
= 1st Tom Bourne (Wimbourne)
= 1st Zac Mahamed (Southampton)
3rd Robbie Coupland (AFD)
=4th Chey Kemp (Reading)
=4th Lachlan Wellington (Portsmouth)

Stampede to the first corner

XC Season is here and after watching the XC Relays for the last 2 years in very cold, very wet conditions it was a pleasant surprise to find sunshine in Mansfield, it didn’t last all day, but it was nice when it came out.

AFD had some great results on the day, topped by an exceptional 1st place performance from the U17 boys; Jack Boswell, Nathan Gibson and Jake Cvetkovic, Jake completing his leg in an amazing sub 9min time.

The U15’s had a lot to live up to, a slight change to the relay team saw Marcus Shantry drafted in for the second leg, with Ollie Percival starting and Robbie once again completing the anchor leg. All three boys had a great run, with excellent times, the start was chaotic, crowded and very physical with the pushing, barging and falling bodies effecting Ollie’s placings on the first leg, but not his actual run.

As mentioned the lads had a great race with Ollie finishing in 16th place in a great time of 6’31”, Marcus moving the team up to 7th place with a time of 6’42” and Robbie running the anchor leg in to finish 6th in a time of 6’35”

A respectable 6th place finish in the National XC Relays.

On Saturday 11th October, whilst I sat in the airport in Alicante Robbie was beating the turf in the 1st Hampshire League match of the season, held at Farley Mount, Winchester.

From Robbie’s account the course was good, but hard on the legs, apparently his quads felt like lead post a hard hill session at his Thursday training. Even so he went out strong, battled hard and finished in a very respectable 4th place. An amazing run by Tom Bourne had him finishing the race 19 seconds in front of second place in a time of 14’44”. Congratulations to Zac Mahamed (2nd – 15’03”) and Chey Kemp (3rd – 15’09”) a good start to the season. Robbie’s 4th place time was 15’15”, 18 seconds in front of 5th place. Congratulations also to the other AFD runners, Ollie Percival (8th – 15’32”), Marcus Shantry (10th –  15’34”), Billy Smith (18th – 15’55”), Sean Pocknee (26th – 16’27”), Tom Naisby (32nd – 17’07”), Matt Oakley (33rd – 17’09”) and Oliver Farnfield (41st – 17’58”).

Overall a great club performance (first 3 club runners count toward the team score) with the following standings across the age groups.

U13 Girls – 4th
U13 Boys – 1st (Special mention for Luke Van Oudtshoorn, AFD, who finshed 35 seconds in front of second place)
U15 Girls – 3rd
U15 Boys – 2nd
U17 Women – 4th
U17 Men – 1st
U20 Women – 1st
U20 Men – 1st
Senior Women – 1st
Senior Men – Div 1 of 3 – 2nd
Veteran Women – 4th
Veteran Men – Div 1 of 2 – 1st

Picture to follow. (Sorry Martin I keep losing them.)