Last week it was Ciara, this week it was Dennis getting in the way of racing. Alex Paul was so frustrated by it all that he headed off to Barcelona in order to get a race in (disclosure: I suspect Alex hd already booked this race before he watched the weather forecast). Alex completed the Barcelona Half Marathon today, Sunday 16 February, in a muy impresionante time of 1.23.12. ​

Between Chiltern League (look out for Steve Perkin's report) and Storm Ciara causing events to be cancelled, there's not too much for Race Report to report on this week, I'm afraid.

That said, a few highlights from parkrun events yesterday, Saturday 8 February:  Chiltern's Kate Loach and Ali Young both came away as first female finisher at Cassiobury Park (21.13) and Sizewell (21.38), respectively. Melanie Windridge ran her first ever parkrun in Tring (25.32), whilst there were all-time PBs for Claire and Nigel Dickinson in Scunthorpe (24.30 and 25.57, respectively).

COMING UP LOCALLY: Bramley 20/10, Harrow Hill 10k, Hardwick X-Stream, Gade Valley Marathon Training Run (17 miles), Winslow Lions 10k and Baldock Beast Half Marathon. Check the Club Calendar out for details of these events and more.

The annual cross country championships for students took place at Holyrood Park, Edinburgh on Saturday.
 
Four Chiltern Harriers took part representing their universities in this large, atmospheric and fun event.
 
The BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) Championships features an elite long A race for men restricted to six in a team, and a shorter B race with more athletes per university allowed, for those that did not get into the A team.
 
For the first time the women had the same two-race pattern.
 
Richard Slade was running for the University of Bath A team, and, with a target of top 50, had a great run to be 47th – compared to previous finishes of 144th at Exeter last year and 118th at Brunel in 2018. Richard was the second Bath finisher.
 
In the men’s shorter B race Harry Cox, running for Cambridge University, had a very good run to be 121st. Harry was 11th Cambridge finisher in a very large and strong team that won team bronze. Back from a stint at Monash University in Melbourne, Sam Howell ran in the B race for Warwick University. Sam was 278th, a creditable run in a huge field of 635 finishers.
 
Not to be outdone by the lads, Lizzie Barraclough had an excellent run to be 112th and seventh Leeds University finisher in the women’s B race which featured 495 finishers.