The eighty-sixth Senior Women's Cross-Country Championships took place at Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath, London. 9569 entries were received for the event and 1880 for the women's race, Saucony continued their sponsorship of the event.
Area champions were Phoebe Law (Kingston AC & Polytechnic Harriers) - Southern, Mhairi Maclennan (Morpeth Harriers) - Northern and Katie Holt (City of Stokes AC) - Midland, the defending champion was Jess Judd (Chelmsford AC).
The race took place under blue skies and there was a moment of glory for Katherine Hodgson (Nuneaton Harriers) who was first up Kite Hill. After the first small lap had been completed, 2016 bronze medalist, Sarah Astin (City Of Norwich AC) just ahead of her Norwich team-mate Iona Lake, Phoebe Law, Katie Bingle and Louise Small - both Aldershot, Farnham & District AC, Georgia Taylor-Brown (Sale Harriers) and Abbie Donnelly (Lincoln Wellington AC). On the second lap Law and Lake were together followed by Small, Astin and Taylor-Brown. Law pushed on and eventually proved too strong for her challengers over the second part of the race winning by 21 seconds from Louise Small with Iona Lake third.
Small finished with an individual silver medal for the third time said "Second again! I train with Phoebe and know how fit she is at the moment." There was a record number of finishers in the ladies' race with 1113 crossing the line well exceeding the last record also at Parliament Hill in 2015 of 865.
21-year-old Phoebe Law told Athletics "I'm delighted, this is my first National title - I was just behind Rebecca in 2015 - and it's what I have been aiming for this winter. The course was very tough. I pushed on that second lap but was never sure I had it won until the finish."
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