Birtley Cross-Country Relays, 12th January 2025
It was a bitterly cold morning and frozen ground greeted the runners for the first relays of the year at Birtley. Indeed, the ground was deemed too hard for cross-country spikes, with trail and even road shoes being preferred.
As we did not have a team in the veteran men’s race, we had a more of a lie-in than usual with our two ladies’ teams being first off. Amongst the 6 women were 2 making their competitive relay debuts – Yana Bevan and Lily Crouzier. For Lily, it was also her first cross-country race. Not that you would have known! Lily was first leg for her team and got herself to the front of the field for the start, and setting off at a cracking pace. Although she couldn’t quite maintain the same speed throughout, she more than held her own, handing over to Jenny Roberts still in the top 20. Jenny ran her normal reliable run, before Holly Porter, smiling throughout, brought the team home.
With Yana running last leg for the other ladies’ team, it was left to the much more experienced Nina Jensen and Gill Milne to put her in a decent position, which they duly did. She then ran an excellent time and gained a couple of places to round off a good race for all. I think we should give a special mention to Anton Mirafsari. There as reserve for the men’s team, Anton acted as coach to the women, running alongside at times and providing advice and encouragement throughout.
Yana loved it, saying In her Strava account: “Freezing & fabulous. Really happy with how I ran today, feeling like I left everything out on the course – and loved cheering everyone on too”. Lily summed it up as “First time doing cross country! Man, that was hard.”, while Gill just said “Brrrr”!
| Position | Runner | Time |
| 26 | Lily Crouzier Jenny Roberts Holly Porter Team Time | 13:01 15:41 14:05 42:47 |
| 45 | Nina Jensen Gill Milne Yana Bevan Team Time | 15:21 17:55 14:50 48:06 |
The single men’s team, despite having two veterans, had to run in the senior race due to the comparative youth of Aaron Mansell! Chris Jones was out first and used all his experience to not get carried away by the very fast start, but to stay calm and run his own race. Despite trailing on the first lap, Chris finished strongly, overtaking a few teams on the 2nd lap. Aaron and David Lydall then ran very similar times to complete a respectable showing in a very fast field.
David’s Strava comment was: “Frosty ground. Not quite the last to finish but close enough.” – not so, Dave, there were 3 teams behind you!
| Position | Runner | Time |
| 25 | Chris Jones Aaron Mansell David Lydall Team Time | 12:38 13:58 14:01 40:37 |
