School Sports (part two) - Athletics cross-country.

Athletics term kicked off with a cross country race, where the whole school competed in three different age groups, and on different courses - I hate long distance running!! Standards were awarded for the finishing times, grades A, B and C, which equated to 4, 3 and 2 points in the "standards competition", which was a term-long inter-house competition. In the rest of the competition we had 6 Field and Track events to complete, our choice, but you had to do at least 2 Field or Track in your selection. These were graded A, B and C, (3, 2 and 1), so your maximum points tally could be 22 - 4 from cross country and 18 from the rest. My best tally was 21 - yes, cross country never yielded me my A standard!
What was frustrating for me with cross country is an inability to pace myself, I used to either burn myself out before half distance and then stagger home, or start too slowly and have too much energy left at the end, after finding out I hadn't run fast enough!! The runners who achieved their standards in the main event at the beginning of term didn't have to do it again - they already had their points - but the rest of us could try it again around 4 more times throughout the term. In the early years I was back in the pack in these additional races, with not much hope of achieving my A, but in the final two years I was the pacemaker as one of the top athletes still in the hunt for an A - and I never did manage to get the pace right! We didn't have stop watches or anything like that, and many of us ran barefoot or in ordinary trainers, so it was all down to trying to work out the pace in your head. The course took us around the very large school estate, through pine plantations, through or over gates (I used to vault them to save time), round granite rocks, up and down Monkey Hill (there was a pretty steep path and a challenge to everyone, but I tried to run it, where most walked), and then down dirt school roads to the athletics field where we had to do a circuit to the finish. My best efforts died on the final lap - our athletics coach used to stand at the finish line with a stopwatch, and as the standard ran down he used to raise his floppy white hat with 10 seconds to go, and drop it as the time ran out. I once made it to the final 80 yards straight - and walked off as the hat dropped, much to the disgust of my Housemaster! - and once got to within a couple of yards before he called time! That was to be my last attempt, as he wouldn't let me try again as he felt it was jeopardising my hurdle training!
Our school was multi-racial, which was unusual in Rhodesia back then as all state-run schools were whites only, but there were one or two "private" (in the UK these would be called "public" schools) that also had open-door policies. It meant that when we competed in any sport at state schools we could only send white participants, but that events at ours were always multi-racial. So we hosted a major inter-schools cross-country competition every year - and boy could some of these guys run! If memory serves there were around 12-15 schools competing, with 8 runners in each of three age groups. Each school was appointed an "escort" per age group who showed the runners the course, took them to meals, and collected their times at the end of the event. I recall being the escort for Waddilove seniors one year, and they spent all the time talking in Shona, so I never understood a word! The first 5 finishers in each age group scored points in the final tally, and the school with the lowest score won - Waddilove were one of the schools that produced incredible runners every year, and I think that year all 5 senior scorers finished in the top 10!