Category Archives: Cross Country

Odd weather conditions today, but I guess that should be expected at a Cross Country meet. The 4th race in the Hampshire League series was hosted by Reading AC, who in turn had a strong showing at the event with Chey Kemp leading from the start across the flat and in to the hills section. The lack of current league leader Zak Mahamed saw a steadier start speed to the race, the hills took there toll on a number of boys, most struggling up them, but Robbie with a problematic hamstring which has kept him from training for a week and is still tight and sore when stretched, not liking the down hills. Lachlan Wellington had powered through the hills section in to first place, steaming down the  steep hill back toward the fields saw an unfortunate marshaling or course error, and Lachlan headed off in the wrong direction, by the time he’d corrected he was back in second place with Chey Kemp back in front. The race didn’t finish there though, with numerous changes over the long finishing straight, Robbie trying to stick in but with no length to his stride his pace could simply not improve found himself pushed back to a 6th place finish by Dominic Willmore (Poole Runners), Chey Kemp also found the final part of the race hard going as Tom Bourne steamed passed everyone to finish first, with Lachlan Wellington second and Alex Rodrigues in 3rd.

Timings now in, top 10 below.

Another year of Hampshire Champs at Eastleigh and another year of lots of rain and plenty of mud. In places the footing was treacherous at best, but it was a true Cross Country course, stretching for 4.35km. With about 1200m to go and Zak Mahamed is storming out in front, with Robbie leading the chase closely followed by Lachlan Wellington, a tight turn in deep mud saw Robbie hit the deck, back on his feet fairly quickly but his rhythm thrown to pieces and Lachlan pulling away and Alex Rowe(Guernsey) & William Brown(Jersey) chasing him down and closing the gap quickly. With 800m to go Robbie is back in his flow and pushing hard, Lachlan is now well clear and Robbie is no threat to that second place position, but with his flow back he quickly starts to open the gap between himself and the Channel Island runners battling for fourth behind him.

Results:
1st Zak Mahamed 14:39
2nd Lachlan Wellington 14:57
3rd Robbie Coupland 15:10
4th Alex Rowe 15:18
5th William Brown 15:23

Unfortunately with only 3 runners AFD did not field a full team and as such could not compete for the team medals.

AFD Runners U15b:
18 Billy Smith 16:48
20 Sean Pocknee 17:00

Robbie Chasing Zak through the Mud of Fleming Park, Eastleigh.

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.)

With the XC season rapidly coming to a close, the only races left are big ones, so it was with some concern that we headed up to Birmingham with Robbie just getting over a cold.

The Inter-Counties is a huge event, televised by Sky Sports with hundreds of runners. Robbie raced in his white and green Hampshire vest, selected as the eighth U15 runner. In these major events, the starts are always penned so the lower your selection place, the further back on the grid you start. With Robbie being selected 8th, he started on the back row (4th) of runners. It was never going to be a special result for Robbie, he went in to the race with a target place of top 60 and an aim to try for top 50. Unfortunately the day didn’t pan out as he hoped, ultimately finishing 71st, and limping away from the line at that.

A Cold, a bad start position and a pulled Glute muscle all contributing to the final place and a disappointing race.

Hampshire Results: (Team Pos. 6th)
8: Jake Cvetkovic 16:29
38: Sam Costley 17:12
53: Ted Yeates 17:22
60: Sam Maher 17:26
71: Robbie Coupland 17:33
127: James Beeks 18:08
172: Edward Mason 18:36
NS: Luke Powell N/A

Seconds before his Glute goes Ping.

22nd of February, Robbie’s first run as a fourteen year old, The National Championships, Wollaton Park, Nottingham.

Well for a change the weather was great, arrived at the park to glorious sunshine, it did cloud over by the time the boys ran, but for February it was warm, and generally a great day, weather wise that is.

AFD U15 Boys are still without Jack Boswell, and with the strength of teams like Tonbridge, Bedford and Leicester, his absence would guarantee no team medal. The Aldershot boys took it in their stride and went all out to try to push the team forward in the team results, with great performances from both Oliver Percival and Harry Grace adding to the team points.

AFD Runers:
08: Jake Cvetkovic 14’23”
44: Robbie Coupland 15’09”
116: Ollie Percival 15’53”
126: Harry Grace 15’56”

The AFD Boys start their battle.

Robbie – Looking Strong passing the Lake

The Battle for the End. – Robbie holds off John Howorth from TeamBath.