In what was probably the muddiest racing conditions any of us had ever seen, our women's team rounded off their amazing season by winning team bronze medals at the National Championships, arguably the best ever result by a Serpentine team in any discipline. Congratulations to Sylvie Lloyd (20th), Becky Glover (27th), Helen Branco (35th) and Natalie Kolodziej (87th). Their race (like many on Saturday) was reduced to 6k (from 8k) because of the conditions. There were 553 competitors including 17 Serpies.

In the men's race, reduced to 10k from 12k, our team have a provisional result of 14th, although that should become 12th once a problem with our leading finisher — Aodh O'Neil's — place is fixed. There were 1302 competitors including 27 Serpies.

Full results here: http://www.englishcrosscountry.co.uk

Serpie results are on the website.

When we arrived at Alton Towers, our immediate reactions were that it was like Glastonbury in a bad year, or perhaps a scene from the battlefields of World War One. Hardly a blade of grass could be found, it was just endless deep mud — and that was just the spectating areas! Sections of the course were under a foot of liquid mud and in fact one of the easier sections was the steep hill we all thought would be the worst – its better drainage meant it wasn't so muddy!