December is a relatively quiet time for key races, and ditto January, but for the old school types early January means the County Cross Country Championships, By old school, I mean people like me who would be agog at the post-County Monday edition of The Daily Telegraph which had detailed results from many county champs and even the odd bit of editorial if a truly elite runner had joined the fray. Nowadays the profile has declined a lot, for all sorts of reasons, so it was great to have regulars from the Parliament Hill Tuesday group racing around in Middlesex, Herts, Kent, Essex, Surrey and Yorkshire.  To set the nostalgia scene, whilst jogging around the Heath Extension on the morning of the County Champs I plodded past Dave Bedford who won various Middlesex races in his day. (He was walking by the way, so I can’t really dine out on tales of ‘when I overtook Dave Bedford’). A neat tie in with the Serpentine men’s team winning the title from Highgate, the usual winners.