Cross Country & Athletics’ Welsh Adventure

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Imperial’s Cross Country & Athletics Club became the largest sports club at Imperial last year, and to celebrate both the end of a fantastic season and the start of another the club travelled to the north coast of Wales for their summer tour in the second week of September.

The destination was a 34-bed house in the slightly odd town of Colwyn Bay. The club converged on the barber’s haven (at least ten hairdressers were spotted in the small town) from across the country and beyond – members flew from Czechia, Tanzania & Hong Kong to make the annual ICXCAC pilgrimage to an entire week of training away from London’s polluted & overcrowded pavements. The majority of members travelled on two minibuses from South Kensington, but others travelled by car, train and plane to reach the Welsh vista.

The purpose of the week was to begin to rebuild fitness after a lazy summer spent abroad, at home, or in a stuffy office serving time at various internships. Other aspects of the tour focused on team-building, and just a little bit of relaxation with the team making amble use of the house’s entertainment facilities including a home-cinema, a surprisingly bass-y speaker, and various table-top games including table football, pool, and table tennis.

Following a run to scout out the local area upon arrival, the first big group activity was a trip to the local 5km parkrun on Saturday morning. The club’s usual parkrun destination is at Fulham Palace which can tend to get rather congested on the 3 laps of Bishop’s Park, so Conwy’s out-and-back route was a welcome change for the group’s spot of parkrun tourism.

Amazingly, 3 members decided to run 20km to get to the start line of the weekly community run in Conwy, whilst the remaining sensible members opted for the relatively short minibus hop down the dual carriageway. Following a special shoutout and the usual spiel from the race director, the runners were away with Imperial claiming seven of the top ten places and receiving a good deal of support from locals and teammates alike along the course.

With their competitive appetite not suitably quenched, the squad journeyed back to their mansion for another prestigious event – the Great ICXCAC Bake-Off.

The club’s long tradition of offering copious amounts of baked goods for ‘degustation’ after the season’s races meant this was equally important training for the year ahead. The entries included a wide range of bakes, from Rice Krispy cakes to lavish vegan/gluten-free creations.

Outgoing women’s captain and tour organiser Anna Lawson was crowned star baker after a Mentimeter poll was used to survey the expert tasters and despite strong indications of vote rigging and corruption (private browsers apparently allow you to vote an unlimited number of times), the other competitors gracefully acknowledged the deserving champion.

The evening’s entertainment saw a game of the children’s birthday party classic: pass-the-parcel. With ‘challenges’ hidden within each layer of the mystery package, the game saw all manner of atrocities committed; the brutal crushing of a satsuma, a spatula used as a toothbrush, and one calf of the incoming club captain mercilessly shaven. This was followed by karaoke into the early hours on the outrageously loud speaker provided in the large open-plan lounge.

The runners were rudely awoken the next day by an unpopular alarm of pan-banging, and eventually the squad departed for Snowdonia with the aim of scoring as much elevation gain as possible. The group split into various paces and distances and remarkably managed to converge on the car park where the minibuses were left with astonishing synchronicity, with only one grazed knee on the list of casualties.

Before long the weekenders (PhDs, employed graduates, long summer interns, and others with better things to do on weekdays) were back off to the capital.

In the following days the itinerary was more relaxed, with the remaining squad of around 20 taking a trip to the local zoo where they marvelled at large camels, gazed up at a well-concealed red panda, gaped at an enormous alligator, and were abused by a red-faced monkey.

Despite the local athletics track being closed for the BBC Proms, the team were hungry for some athletics, and so travelled to Wrexham athletics track on one of the days for a mini-Olympics style set of events in which four teams competed over 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, shotput, discus, long jump, and 4x100m relay. It was a hotly contested series with strong potential to make a return for the club’s Athletics Taster Day on October 10th.

The most picturesque run of the trip took place on a visit to Llandudno where the team circumnavigated the headland in glorious sunshine with stunning views of the Isle of Anglesey.

The Club is already making plans to return to the country of dragons, sheep, and daffodils with a trail tour heading to Imperial’s Mountain Hut in Snowdonia for the first weekend of November. There are also plans to head a tiny bit further north before the end of October where the team will be taking a minibus up to Manchester to enter three teams in the university club’s cross-country relays.

To find out more about ICXCAC, visit us at Freshers’ Fair or email run@ic.ac.uk.