Mark Lon­don's prepa­ra­tion for the up­com­ing track sea­son has shaped up well, with him ex­celling in re­cent cross-coun­try events on both is­lands.

On the week­end, he took the Open Men's 6k ti­tle at Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) To­ba­go Cross Coun­try run which he de­scribed as spe­cial.

"To get the win on home soil is al­ways a spe­cial feel­ing to me," said Lon­don on win­ning in a time of 21 min­utes and 48 sec­onds at the an­nu­al event which un­fold­ed at the Mt Irvine Golf Course.

The Zenith Ath­let­ics Club run­ner beat de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Elvis Turn­er, who fin­ished as the run­ner-up, cross­ing in 22.46 while Kedane O'Con­nor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) was third in 26.59.

"The last time I ran in the To­ba­go Cross Coun­try Cham­pi­onships was in 2012 where I won the open Men 6k as well. Then in 2014 I went off to col­lege (Cop­pin State Uni­ver­si­ty) in the US so it’s a re­al­ly sat­is­fy­ing feel­ing for me to be back in T&T com­pet­ing con­sis­tent­ly and healthy again," said Lon­don.

"I'm a mid­dle dis­tance run­ner ide­al­ly (800m), so cross coun­try races al­ways been a part of my base train­ing lead­ing up to the track sea­son. And I’ve run races be­fore with the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on in pre­vi­ous years so I know that he’s ca­pa­ble of keep­ing up with a sol­id pace."

Last month, Lon­don, pre­vailed in the NAAA Sa­van­nah One Lap road race at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, win­ning in 11.29, to beat Matthew Ha­gley of De­fence Force (11.31) in­to sec­ond with Kelvin John­son (Un­at­tached) in third in 11.38.

"Since I got back from school in June my fit­ness lev­el been in­creas­ing rapid­ly again due to con­sis­ten­cy in train­ing. So the race was re­al­ly com­fort­able for me from start to fin­ish. And to get the win on home soil is al­ways a spe­cial feel­ing to me," said a five-time Carif­ta Games track and field gold medal­list.

"I’m glad that I’m able to show my dom­i­nance in events that I con­sid­er as prepa­ra­tion to­wards my ac­tu­al (pet) events (1,500m and 800m) on the track. So with that be­ing said, I’m ex­act­ly where I want to be thus far head­ing in­to 2019."

In the women's race, UTT's Jan­ice Good­ing won in 30.33 and placed sev­enth over­all. Fol­low­ing her to the line was the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Caris­sa Dou­glas Ja­cob (32.53) of Rox­bor­ough Sec­ondary School (RSS) Phoenix and Dos Fit Stu­dio's Evlyn Car­ring­ton (43.38) in sec­ond third po­si­tions, re­spec­tive­ly.