Knole Park Cross Country

Kent Fitness League 2025/26 Race 3

Well, they say when you’re up you’re up. That was the case with Knole Park. With a 9am start and a long journey from Thanet, it was a very early start for the TRACies.

Although hovering around freezing, the sun was out and Knole Park with all the roaming deer was stunning!!
As we all started turning up from 8am onwards, there was a real buzz in the team as we were boosted by the returning Benidorm gang. Some alarm clock issues meant a nervous wait for a number of the team. Thankfully most of them made it… Phew!

Not much talk of spikes this time as the main decisions with Knole are trail or road shoes. Warm ups, drills, team photo then we were all ready to go. Ok Dan, I think you have run out of positions for the team photo now!
9am and we were off.

The course starts with a 1km ish steady up hill (the centre being tarmac) where you have to be careful not to raise your heart rate too much.

Next a sharp right and a steep down followed by a very long steady downhill all the way back in the direction of Knole, a loop around and now going on a long steady up in the opposite direction to the long steady downhill. It’s a chance for the runners to shout encouragement to each other. 

At the top of this when your heart rate is sky high, the legs are heavy and the lungs on fire, you are rewarded with a short super steep up (thanks). Luckily you could not see the top as the sun was in your eyes.
Now it’s all hard paths (pretty much) and a long down, again towards Knole but from a different direction.
Trying hard to catch your breath, a turn, then a gentle up through some woods where you emerge on the tarmac start path where you know it is everything you have left downhill to the finish.

I’ve recorded my fastest ever 1km on this bit and have also nearly been run over by a group of crossing deer so was trying to keep my wits about me. Was trying hard to stay with Phil Morton and knew I had tried hard as I was very nearly sick when crossing the line. At the finish line the speedy TRACies were already there and clapping in the rest of the team.

Tea, coffee and yummy home baked cake followed, but my dog Leo was more interested in eating twigs?

We were missing a number of speedy boys today so an incredible performance to finish 3rd in the mens team and remain 2nd overall (medals position)

My excitement this week however was for the girls who didn’t disappoint. Finishing 6th last week, they finished 4th today behind very strong teams from Sevenoaks, Canterbury and Petts Wood. The ladies now march up to 5th overall.

Can I also say a massive thanks to everyone who didn’t score in the team (me included), but by finishing in front of other scoring runners helped us push the others teams down the pecking order.

Knole team results –

Combined – 3rd
Mens – 3rd
Ladies – 4th

Overall team results after 3 races:

Combined – 3rd
Mens – 2nd (starting to build a points gap between us and 3rd)
Ladies – 5th

Take a well-deserved rest from XC everyone.
The next one will be Minnis Bay on 4th Jan, where fingers crossed we will have our strongest squad to date with hopefully some new additions.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Phil and Jo

Click for the full KFL results