IT might be cold, muddy and, more often than not, hilly, but a year without it has made Jessica Judd realise just how much she loves cross-country running.

The 19-year-old from Canvey missed virtually the entire cross-country season last winter with a back injury.

But she has returned to the off-road racing scene in style this season, showcased in a magnificent win at the Liverpool Cross-Challenge on Saturday, which booked her spot in Great Britain’s junior women’s team for next week’s European Cross-Country Championships.

“I missed it so much last year,” said Judd, who is currently studying at Loughborough University.

“I just really enjoy doing it, especially the training. It’s hard, really hard and I come home thinking like I’m dying, but it feels like I’m getting somewhere.”

Judd, in her final winter as an under-20 athlete, will go into next weekend’s European Championships as the GB junior women’s team leader after her win in Liverpool.

She ran a tactically smart race, sitting in the lead group, allowing an early attack to go away before hitting out alone in the last kilometre.

“It was a really nice feeling to be able to kick away and win. Especially because it was at Liverpool. I’ve had a couple of fallings out with that course before so it was nice to be able to finish my junior career with a win there.

“Because I missed the cross-country season last year, I didn’t really know what to expect going into the race. I knew my training had been going really well but you are never 100 per cent sure if that would correlate into a good race.”

Since moving up to university in Loughborough, Judd has linked up with coach George Gandy and been able to run with a clutch of top runners based at the university town, including fellow students and British distance running internationals Stevie Stockton and Laura Whittle.

“Training has been really, really hard,” she said. “I’m doing a lot more miles but I have a lot of people to run with now. So, even though I’m running further, it doesn’t feel like it because I have got company.”

Judd – who reached the 800m finals on the track in both the Commonwealth Games and European Championships last summer – said she will be going to the European Cross in the Bulgarian town of Samokov hoping to break the top 10.

But in the back of her mind, she knows the cross-country season is just preparation for her main objective of running well on the track this summer and that takes some of the pressure off.

“I do get slightly less nervous nowadays running cross-country,” she said. “I would love to do well but it’s not really the biggest thing in the world for me anymore. It’s all part of a process looking towards the track season.”