Up hills and through puddles
The GoodGym Race Team invites you to get muddy
September 06, 2023
The GoodGym Race team would like to welcome new runners to compete in the London Metropolitan Cross Country League. Here, Alison Davidson from GoodGym Islington explains what it's all about and how you get involved
Each year GoodGymmers from the London area compete in the Men’s and Ladies races at each fixture and we'd love to more people to join us. The league consists of one fixture a month from October to February and races are always held on a Saturday afternoon. Locations are all accessible by TfL underground and we usually meet up and travel together so no one gets lost. The courses are approximately 7-8km for both men and women. They are undulating, with plenty of mud, and sometimes, if we’re lucky, a stream crossing! Cross country spikes are not always necessary, but we highly recommend trail shoes.
The London Met League was formed in 1966, more information is available here: https://metleague.run/.
Everyone that races scores points for their team, no matter their finishing time or position. The races are very inclusive and welcoming, and people of all ages and abilities come together. Team points are calculated after each fixture and the league results are totalled up after the final one. You don't need to attend all the races so just join the ones you can.
If that sounds like fun, and believe me it is, then you'll need to do the following to get involved:
- Become an England Athletics member: https://www.englandathletics.org/take-part/athlete-registration/
- Join the GoodGym Race Team: https://www.goodgym.org/race-team
- Pay your share of the team registration fee, which works out to a very reasonable £5-7 per person for all five races!
- To do this, get in touch with either Graham or myself: Alison Davidson: alison@goodgym.org / Graham Atkins: grahamtatkins@gmail.com
- Sign up to the race listings on GoodGym. These will go up once the provisional dates have been confirmed.
These are the provisional dates for the forthcoming season:
- Saturday, 14th October 2023 at Claybury, hosted by WGEL
- Saturday, 11th November 2023 at Wormwood Scrubs, hosted by TVH
- Saturday, 2nd December 2023 at Uxbridge, hosted by Hillingdon AC
- Saturday, 13th January 2024 at Welwyn Garden City, hosted by Herts P
- Saturday, 10th February 2024 at Trent Park, hosted by Barnet & District/ Trent Park RC
The start times for each race are: 13:00 - Women 13:45 - Men
Once you have joined and paid, we will add you to our WhatsApp group, and then all you need to do is sign up for each race on GoodGym so that we have an idea of numbers.
Islington Area Activator, Simon Fitzmaurice, is leading several hill training sessions in Primrose Hill in anticipation of cross country season. The first session is Friday, 29th September, listed here: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/gg-race-team-met-league-hill-training-session-september
If you’re not London-based, but are interested in cross country races in your area, then there are plenty of other Cross Country Leagues throughout the UK. GoodGym race team is registered with England and Welsh Athletics, so if you have enough interest in your local GoodGym, then it should be straightforward to put together a team. Contact the race team on raceteam@goodgym.org if you'd like any support with this.
- England Athletics lists cross country competitions on their website here: https://www.englandathletics.org/competitions-and-events/licensed-competitions/
- Welsh Athletics lists Welsh Leagues on their website here: https://www.welshathletics.org/en/competition/current/discipline/cross-country
