Related articles
On Friday the 16th of November, Kensington Park School took part in its first ever cross country race. The team, made up of Benjamin Emerton and Tyler De-La Bertouche Martinsson, made their way to Sevenoaks School to race in the famous Junior Knole Park Run: a beautiful 2.1 mile course in the National Trust owned Knole Park.
As the team arrived at Sevenoaks the fog started to roll in; it seemed apt that weather so synonymous with cross country decided to join the boys for their first ever fixture. Competing alongside the boys were around fifty other schools, some of which had brought large squads with them. After a brief warm up, it was time for the girls race to start and this provided the boys with a great insight into the challenge ahead of them. Unfazed, but a little wiser to the course, they completed their warm up and headed off to the start line ready to compete.
Tyler bustled his way through the pack of runners at the start line and got himself into a strong starting position. Benji favoured another route and hung back from the crowd so that he didn’t end up caught in the melee on the first corner. Both boys dealt with this first challenge seamlessly and headed onwards to the first hill. Unfortunately it was at this point that Tyler was forced to retire from the race as a previous calf injury returned to haunt him. It did, however, get him an exciting ride back to the finish line on a quadbike! Benji pushed onwards to tackle the rest of the course, disappearing off into the woodland. He emerged near the finish line around ten minutes later in the main pack of runners. A truly superb effort by Benji who pushed himself to the very limits on this course!
This was a very exciting way to start off the cross country season and showed what can be achieved through some hard work and determination. It acted as a wonderful follow-on from the cross country sessions we have been doing in Kensington Gardens during PE sessions. There are many more cross country events appearing in the KPS diary so stay tuned for, what will hopefully be, more success stories!