The above Championships were held at Knowsley Safari Park (near Liverpool) and with the amount of rain which fell, firm conditions were out of the question as the course progressively throughout the day turned into a “Mud Bath” which proved very difficult to run on. This suited some but not others.
With these Championships falling between the Schools County & Inter-County trials, a lot of our younger athletes choose to miss the Northerns and concentrate on the schools, but some as you will see from the report will be competing in all of them.
In the U13 Girls Race it was congratulations to Ines Curran who has been very consistent all season, she was always in contention at the front of the race and ran superbly to finish in 6th position.
The U13 Boys saw Ethan McGlen battling through the mud, with it being such a demanding course a previous cold affected him a lot, which was obviously disappointing for him, but he battled on to the finish, Jack Garrett also braved the conditions and I’m sure the Race and atmosphere will prove valuable experience to him for the future.
Chloe Wellings and Amy Baker competed in the U15 Girls race with Chloe as always really competing well and trying to work through the field, Amy was looking to gain experience at this level and performed well and said she enjoyed the whole atmosphere.
Isobel Chaudrey led the U17 Women’s Team to very creditable 4th placing and just missing out on medals, the remainder of the team consisted of Elisha Tate, Jessica Leslie and Nicole Mcilvaney for a great team and individual performances.
Alex Armstrong continued his steady improvement/progression in the U17 Men age group running in his first major championship, gained valuable experience on all fronts, he competed well in the conditions on the day, and consolidated his positon from the North Eastern a month earlier.
By the time the Senior Women’s race came around the conditions had deteriated to the point that the whole course was just mud, but they did close a Team finishing in 16th position (over 50 teams started) with Mary Ferrier leading the way in 31st position in a very competitive field and also consolidating her run from the North Eastern Champs. Mary was backed up well by Sarah Hall, ladies captain Lisa Atkinson and suberb running from Maggie Lorraine to close the team.
The runners in the Senior Men’s race carried the club colours with pride, with Steven Medd the leading runner and a very good run from Peter Grimoldby and Sean Hall backing up. Finishing the race was an achievement, with it being last race of the day, it was the worst conditions.
So well done to all that made the trip, just to mention that the club have a lot of youngsters Female & Male competing in the Schools Inter-Counties Champs on Sat. 4th Feb. at Kirby Stephen to try and gain selection for their County Team and run in the English X-country Champs in March, best of luck to everyone.
John
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