First race back after a persistent Achilles niggle , minimal training , and only my  second cross country  effort in the season. Could not have chosen a worse one (or best depending on your XC tastes) in terms of conditions. In the final Kent Fitness League event over 5 miles round Blean Woods the British winter threw everything it had at us. A veritable cocktail of the best of traditional British  winter weather. Bitterly cold , windy, heavy rainalternating with sleet or hailstone showers with an exotic mix of sunny spells and yes a rainbow as extra special flavouring. Difficult to keep warm and warm up in the open field at the start but once in the woods  and sheltered not too bad. Underfoot conditions were just as expected ergo muddy molehills in the field , the unavoidable but  not so deep as usual  but still as dank as usual muddy pool on the exit from and the return into the field. As for the rest of the course basically varying degrees of quality mud. Still took it easy for the first half of the course and the Achilles appears to have survived the ordeal and hopefully no issues from tomorrow  onwards with it. Shame as beginning to regret just a bit that I decided not to enter the Nationals at Parliament Hill in three weeks time where if the weather continues as is there will be the finest quality Cross Country mud to be found in all of the land.