Back on the XC Trail at the Southern Champs

For the second weekend in a row, Arena sent a small squad to a regional cross-country event, with five runners heading up to Beckenham Place Park for the SEAA Southern Cross Country Championships 2026.

Travel plans were slightly disrupted thanks to Southern Rail throwing a spanner in the works, so the squad made the trip by road instead. Despite that, everyone arrived in good time to collect numbers and get a warm-up in before racing got underway.

The event featured ten races in total, covering age groups from under-13s through to the senior championships that rounded off the day. The first race involving Arena runners was the women’s championship, where 335 runners took on the 4.7-mile (7.5km) course. Our two runners performed as follows:

Pos	Name	Time
128	Katie Wright	00:34:41
196	Helena Rooney	00:37:39

A little over an hour later, the men’s championship took place over a testing 8.8-mile course. Here’s how our runners finished in the field of 603:

Pos	Name	Time
258	Craig Puncher	00:58:24
396	Jamie Hinks	01:03:56

There’s now a short break before the final fixture of the Sussex Cross Country League at Glyndebourne on Valentine’s Day, Saturday 14th February. Sign-up is available via the clubhouse and we hope to see plenty of Arena vests on the start line.