Newmarket & Sudbury survive in second position of Suffolk Winter XC League after fourth fixture at Bungay

In the Newmarket Joggers camp, it was a very pleasant surprise to see that Newmarket & Sudbury (N&S), the joint team of Newmarket Joggers & Sudbury Joggers, had managed to retain 2^nd position in the Suffolk Winter XC League 2025-26, despite a depleted turnout of runners at the Bungay XC fixture in Corton, on Sunday 25^th January. It’s true that N&S have lost a lot of ground, so that Saint Edmund Pacers’ A teams are now leaders by a safe margin in the women’s, men’s and combined competitions, while Framlingham Flyers and Saxmundham & Woodbridge are now hot on the heels of N&S in the women’s and men’s competitions respectively. This survival in second position gives N&S more encouragement to strive to retain their narrow lead over the pursuing teams in the final two fixtures at Pakenham, Bury St Edmunds (Sunday, 8th February) and Horseheath, Haverhill (Sunday, 15th February). If N&S can achieve a good turnout of their fastest runners, they have every chance of maintaining second position in all the A-team competitions.

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ROUND UP OF OTHER RACES

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Hannah and Neil Pollard flew to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for the annual Dubai Marathon & 10K event on Sunday, 1st February. They opted for the 10K race, which attracted 6,301 women and men. Due to some technical fault, Hannah didn’t actually get a chip time. According to her watch, she did very well to post her second best ever time of 42:37 SB, which would put her 25^th of 2,158 female finishers and 3^rd of 306 in F45; an impressive performance indeed. Neil finished in a chip time of 42:47, 105^th of 4,143 male runners and 7th of 628 in M45. That would be a great result for most men, but Neil is used to going about 10 minutes faster! On this occasion he was more than happy to support Hannah in her final two miles.

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Much nearer home on the same day, two Joggers competed in the Lavenham Old Railway 10K, organised by Raw Trails. This was a fairly tough trail race, which went part of the way along a disused railway track. Sarah Last (1:12:24, 148^th of 174 overall, 59^th F of 80) was first home from Gillian Green (1:28:37, 79^th F). They both enjoyed the challenge and the scenery.

MORE CROSS COUNTRY NEWS

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Junior Jogger Harvey Thomas U17 was honoured to get a late call-up from Suffolk Schools Athletics, to represent the county in the Anglian Schools XC Championships in Abington, Northamptonshire on Saturday, January 31st. He had been chosen as first reserve for the Anglian event after the previous XC trials at Woodbridge School on January 15th. At Abington, he competed in the Inter Boys race over 5km and put in a very good time of around 20 minutes. Individual results are not yet available but we know that Suffolk finished fourth county in the Inter Boys race and were the overall winners of the Championships.