With “The Storm” forecast for later in the day, dire warnings of “Get Home Quickly” were issued from Anna as we set out on the long trek to Bristol.
The trip out kept dry, but the winds were building, and half way around our course walk through, the heavens opened. Though heavy the downpour was short lived and by the time Robbie was warmed up and ready to go the sun was breaking through the clouds once more.
After an initial stumble Robbie is back up and in with the crowd as they race down the starting straight.
Being bottom year, the UK Cross Challenge is going to be very hard for Robbie this year, so he needs to concentrate on specific targets, not wins as such. With that in mind the Target for Bristol was a top 10 finish, which unfortunately didn’t happen with Robbie finishing in 12th place, that said it was an excellent performance against some very strong opposition. With the likes of last years U13’s winner, Matt Rawlings, finishing 8th, and Piers Copeland, upper age group but an old adversary of Robbie’s from 2 years ago, finishing 9th. It shows that 12th was in fact not such a bad position after all.
The Table below shows the first 12 runners from this year, with equivalent times for that position (Not Runner) last year.
| Pos. | Name | Team | Time | 2012 Time |
| 1 | Ben Dijkstra | Leicester | 12:56.0 | 13:38.0 |
| 2 | Will Crisp | Swindon | 13:40.0 | 13:48.0 |
| 3 | Will Stockley | Bath | 13:44.0 | 13:54.0 |
| 4 | Dylan Leisinger | Hastings | 13:52.0 | 14:12.0 |
| 5 | Chey Kemp | Reading | 14:02.0 | 14:21.0 |
| 6 | Archie Stoneman | Exeter | 14:04.0 | 14:29.0 |
| 7 | Jaymee Dormoney | Salisbury | 14:09.0 | 14:36.0 |
| 8 | Matt Rawlings | Reading | 14:12.0 | 14:38.0 |
| 9 | Piers Copeland | Wimborne | 14:15.0 | 14:47.0 |
| 10 | John Howorth | Bath | 14:21.0 | 14:56.0 |
| 11 | Robert Howorth | Bath | 14:22.0 | 15:08.0 |
| 12 | Robbie Coupland | AFD | 14:28.0 | 15:12.0 |
As you can see from above, this years race was quite a bit quicker than last years, but that happens a lot with Cross Country, it would have been nice to see Jack Boswell (7th last year) there again this year, just to see how he responded to Ben Dijkstra’s outstanding performance.