In the seniors races both the female and male teams performed superbly. Conditions were relatively kind for a cross country championships, although this just made the pace pretty furious (especially early on).
In the women’s race, Brigid Dennehy finished first for the club in 56th place, followed closely by Jane Giles in 64 place. Aife McSheffrey and Liz Raven rounded out the women’s counters in 89th and 129th place respectively. This put the team in 10th place and 3rd North East team. These four were backed up superbly by Lucie Wilkinson, Charlotte Perkins and the evergreen Maggie Lorraine. Some relatively new names to the Gateshead women’s team, backed by some stalwarts, produced some great running in Pontefract.
In the men’s race Conrad Franks, who recently represented England in the Masters International Cross Country Championships, once again lead the Gateshead men home (41st place). James Cripwell followed him in 105th place, with Ross Christie just behind in 106th. Matt Linsley, still relatively inexperienced in his athletic career and running well over his target distance of 800m, was next in 136th. The six counters were completed by Daniel Alexander a couple of places further down (138th) and Steven Medd (176th). The team finished 11th overall and second North East team. Unfortunately Calum Johnson was unable to compete, or the club would have finished well inside the top 10. Steve Asquith (196th), Kevin Connolly (228th) and Peter Grimoldby (420) performed admirably, given their recent illnesses and injuries. Last year only three Gateshead men ran in the Northern Champs, so this is a huge improvement.