Faced with having to put out competitive teams in both Saturday's prestige Leicestershire and Rutland County Championships, followed 24 hours later by the third fixture in this season's Derby Runner Cross Country League, the club thought they had come up with a cunning strategy to maximise their impact on both events.

With eight runners being needed to count in the Sunday fixture and wishing to make a significant move up the leader board after a nil result in the men's division two in the opening leg, a decision was made to pack the entries for this race.

There was a different scenario for the women, where the club are in the promotion frame already. It was also decided to put in a strong entry with a view to cementing the push for a division one ranking for next season.

In comparison, despite the county championships carrying far more kudos and with possibilities of selection for the Leicestershire team to race in the forthcoming inter-counties championships, it was decided to go with small quality entries to improve the prospects for the following day's event.

At this point, however, mother nature played its hand and with wintry conditions taking a firm grip the venue of the Derby Runner race was declared too hazardous and cancelled.

This, therefore, somewhat backfired with numerous keen cross country specialists marginalised by the county association's stipulation on advance entries being finalised before Christmas.

There were nevertheless fine performances by those athletes who did toe the line at this year's venue, Oadby's Brocks Hill Park.

In the senior men's race over 10km Adam Taylor ran a hard and true race looking to put the disappointment of disqualification from the previous weekend's Huncote Hash behind him. The essentially flat course did not play to his strengths but 14th place in a time of 38mins 59secs, ranged against the cream of the county, was an excellent return. Strong support came from 22nd placed Steve Hollingsworth in 42:36 and Chris Wiley, 29th in 45:37.

In the women's race over 6km, Fleckney and Kibworth franked their excellent form of the last 12 months with some outstanding results. The county pecking order is heavily influenced by the nationally rated Charnwood AC. Taking this club aside, however, Fleckney and Kibworth are closing in on the best of the rest.

This was demonstrated with seventh place for Lorna Watersin 31:59, followed by ninth for Rachael Campbell in 33:06, then 11th Jody Ward in 34:06 and 12th Claire Beach in 35:32.