Matt Brown was part of a strong field in the Winchester 10k
A strong season in the Hampshire Cross Country League saw Matt Brown finish 23rd in the final aggregate standings which is excellent given the competition he was up against. He consistently delivered solid performances in all four races and he was third highest Bournemouth AC member in the standings behind Abdinasir Mohamoud Elmi who won all three of his races and Ollie James who was 5th overall for the season.
Matt’s next move saw him return to the road for the Winchester 10k. The route is a sort of triangular shaped loop which starts from Winchester Guildhall in front of the King Alfred statue. Heading out towards the village of Kingsworthy, it then passes through Headbourne Worthy and back towards Winchester, finishing at North Walls Recreation Centre.
It’s not really a flat course and there are a fair few inclines to tackle on the way, particularly on the fourth and fifth miles. The conditions were quite windy on the day as well which wouldn’t have helped those gunning for a fast time.
Matt’s last proper road 10k was Round the Lakes back in 2023 where he managed a strong sub 34 minute effort to finish third. At his very best he ran 32:34 at Eastleigh back in 2021 which put him in 8th place that day.
The race gets going with Matt on the left of the shot
Starting off with a 5:26 and a 5:27 for his first two mile splits, Matt had gone out reasonably hard. There was a bit of an incline on the third mile which put him back to 5:39. Then it was onto the fourth mile which was all on an upward trajectory.
Matt had proved in the past that he had a very fast 10k time in him
Getting through that in 5:48, the incline continued for a bit of the fifth mile before a downhill section provided some welcome respite. There was another incline to contend with though before the mile was out and Matt went through that in 5:43. That left him with just a mile and a quarter to go.
There was another slight inline on that mile but it didn’t slow Matt down too much. Then he picked the pace up strongly on the downhill section which followed that brought him close to the finish.
The idea of the Winchester 10k race must have appealed to these bananas
Reaching the line in a time of 34:42, Matt had taken fourth place out of 1,300 runners. That was not a bad result for Matt, even though he’d just missed out on a podium spot.
He had been hoping for a slightly quicker time that than so he was a touch disappointed as he felt he should be in better shape. It may have been just due to a lack of race sharpness though as he hadn’t competed since the last Hampshire League Cross Country race in January.
Nick Bester comes in to take a convincing win in 31:48
The course came up as 6.25 miles and Matt clocked an average pace of 5:33 per mile. That was pretty decent given the 338ft of elevation he had to contend with, not to mention the tough headwind at times.
Nick Bester won the race in a course record time of 31:48, putting his average pace at 5:05. Harry Hart of Tri Team Wessex was second in 33:56, with Leo Maliphant of Aldershot Farnham & District taking third in 34:29.
Former Bournemouth AC man Matt du Cros finished 19th in 36:21 and Victoria Duncan of Newbury AC was first female in 38:09 which put her 33rd overall. Elspeth Turner of Horsham Blue Star Harriers was second female in a time of 38:50 which put her 41st overall.
There should be plenty of opportunities coming up in the near future for Matt to get his race sharpness back on track, including the Salisbury 10 which is the next race in the Hampshire Road League. There is also the 12 Stage Road Relays taking place in Milton Keynes at the end of March if the Bournemouth AC men can scrape a team together for that. The Eastleigh 10k is coming up soon and the Round the Lakes 10k is on the first weekend of April as well, so plenty of events in the pipeline for the yellow and blue army to get their teeth into.