Eleven Morpeth Harriers had the honour of representing the North East region when the annual Inter Counties Cross Country Championships took place at a relatively dry, sunny but breezy Wollaton Park in Nottingham on Saturday.
Although the recent postponement of the English National Cross Country in Staffordshire had cast doubts on the event taking place at all, with onsite parking the major issue, fortunately organisers managed to secure extra parking across the City to allow the ten-race programme to go ahead. In the opening event for Under 20 Men, the North East team included four members of Morpeth Harriers who all made the scoring count, with the team finishing in sixth place out of 21 finishing outfits. First to show for the region in the total field of 155 finishers was Morpeth Harrier Joe Dixon, who finished strongly in 18th place, with next home club colleague Will Devere-Owen, who finished 31st. Bertie Marr was 39th with Ethan Phillips completing the region’s scoring quartet when in 61st place. Best result for the North East however came in the day’s final Senior Men’s event, where Northern Champion Calum Johnson of Gateshead Harriers took victory and the individual Gold Medal, winning by seven seconds from Leicester and Rutland’s Tom Evans, with Scotland East’s Scott Stirling getting the Bronze. It was also a team Gold for the North East Counties, with a win by 116 points over second placed Yorkshire, with a Northern Ireland Team finishing third, a further eight points adrift. Morpeth provided two members of the winning six to count team, with regular pick Carl Avery 13th and debutant Will Johnson 60th. The team count was made up by 10th placed Cameron Allan and 30th placed Chris Coulson, both of Houghton Harriers, with Adrian Bailes of Birtley 68th. Just outside the scoring count was new Morpeth acquisition Ellis Hetherington, who finished ninety third in the day’s largest field of some 285 finishers. Second largest field of the day was the Senior Women, where the North East were just pipped for a podium place, finishing fourth behind winners Surrey, with Yorkshire and Kent claiming second and third team placings, respectively. Catriona MacDonald was the second counter of the six for the region, finishing in 44th place, with the region led home by North Shields Poly’s Charlotte Penfold in 26th. Morpeth’s Millie Breese led the North East Under 20 Women home to tenth team place, when she finished in 28th. Three Morpeth Harriers lined up in the Under 17 Men’s event, where the region finished in eleventh team place. Elliot Kelso led the squad home when he finished in 32nd place, with Joseph Close and Ollie Tomlinson both receiving late call ups to the squad. Close was third team counter in 92nd place, and Tomlinson 137th. The North East had an excellent individual result in the Under 13 Boys event, where North East and Northern Champion Thomas McCartie of Middlesbrough AC finished third, and gained a Bronze Individual medal, and led the region to fifth team place. Sadly Morpeth’s Ewan Line was unable to run, however. There were podium places for the North East’s Under 13 Girls and Under 17 Women’s squads, who both secured Bronze medals. The Under 13 Girls were led home by Birtley’s Olivia Murphy, who finished in twelfth place, with further team support coming from New Marske’s Gabriele Pinder (16th), Birtley club colleague Poppy Phillipson (36th), and Alnwick’s Emilia Waugh (54th). Houghton’s Charlotte Dillon led the Under 17 Women home, when finishing eighth, with further team support coming courtesy of Darlington Harrier Zara Jones (16th), Blaydon Harrier Ellie Fellows (38th), and Gateshead Harrier Aoife Bell (41st). The region's Under 15 Boys and Under 15 Girls squads finished in 13th and 17th places, respectively.
0 Comments
Morpeth Harriers and Athletics Club will host a club awards and social evening at Barluga, Morpeth, next month.
The event takes place on Sunday 7 April and will begin at 7pm. This will be the first awards evening the club has held since Covid and it will include the presentation of club championship trophies for young athletes and seniors as well as several other longstanding club awards. We are delighted to announce that club legend Olympian Laura Weightman will be in attendance and present the awards. Tickets are on sale at the clubhouse on Monday evenings between 6.30 and 8pm and cost £25 per person. This includes the price of entry and a two-course meal. You can also reserve tickets by contacting morpethharriers@aol.com. The fourth round of the North East Harrier League took place in Alnwick Pastures on Saturday, with just short of a thousand runners across the ten events braving conditions that ranged from promising sunshine before lunch to squally showers thereafter.
With the castle dominating the skyline in the distance, Alnwick is almost the most scenic of the region’s cross country fixtures and local outfit Alnwick Harriers once again stepped up to organise with aplomb. But it is a mark of how disrupted this season has been by the weather that a fixture which traditionally bringing the curtain down on the cross country season was this year only the fourth of a proposed six. As has been the case for most of the season, it was once again a mixed bag of results for the club, with one team victory and one individual victory the stand out performances. The team victory came courtesy of the club’s Under 17 Boys, who were led home by Harry Armstrong in 6th place from Slow Pack. With regulars Joe Close and Oliver Tomlinson finishing 10th and 13th from Fast, and Stephen Craske 29th from Slow, the team finished ahead of North Shields Polytechnic and Low Fell and moved into third place in the overall table, but only now three points behind leaders Birtley. Winning the title isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility – but will require some real commitment in the next two rounds to make it happen. There was also a good performance in the Junior races from the club’s U/15 Girls, led home by Lucie Todd in 8th place from Slow, with Emma Tomlinson one place further back from Fast and Charlotte Marshall 24th from Slow. Finishing 4th, the team are now only one point overall off Gosforth Harriers in third. However a hugely disappointing turn out in what had been previously been one of the club’s strongest age categories saw the U/13s Boys fail to turn up to defend their place at the top of the table, with only stalwart Jack Dhawar in 36th turning out and the team slipping to second overall in the division behind a now out of sight Elswick Harriers. It is very sad to see a season’s good work undone by one poor showing. There was a similar disappointment in the U/13 Girls, where, despite the best efforts of ever presents Faye Heatley (5th) and Zoe Tomlinson (20th), both running from Fast, the club was unfortunately unable to secure a third finisher, with Birtley winning on the day and Morpeth now fourth overall. Most worrying of all perhaps was the absence of a single Morpeth vest in the U/15 Boys race. However, there was a welcome return to action for Tabitha Robson in the combined U/17 Girls and U/20 Women’s race, where a small but competitive field saw her finish in 15th from Medium Pack, 11th U/17. Biggest fields of the day were again in the day’s final two Senior races, although the numbers in each were down by well over a hundred from previous fixtures. Far and away the club’s best showing was in the Senior Women, where an exciting and close contest with Durham City saw Morpeth narrowly miss out on the team win by only three points to remain firmly in contention near the top of the table. The team was led home once again by Catriona Macdonald, looking fresh after the previous weekend’s run in the Scottish Nationals, who recorded the day’s fastest time of 28 minutes 26 seconds from Fast Pack, with the race won by Durham’s Nicole Burkinson from Slow in 30:01 from Gateshead’s Mary Ferrier (30:53). Jane Hodgson in 10th (29:44), a returning Morag Stead 21st (31:02) and Poppy Buck 39th (32:11) completed the club’s scoring count of four, with further strong runs by Tayla Douglas, 49th from Medium, and Lizzie Rank, 56th from Fast making the top 100. An ever improving Laura Mclean was 102nd (38:57), Lorna Macdonald 186th from Fast (36:46), Frances Naylor 217th (43:25) and Margaret Macdonald 269th (48:31). With all Morpeth’s finishers coming from Fast Pack, Durham can certainly count themselves fortunate to have found counters from Slow and Medium to help secure the win, but with these runners moving up for the next fixture, the final two fixtures look set for an exciting contest, with both teams now out of sight at the top of the division. A win is dependent on course on the kind of quality commitment on display here. Final race of the day saw just over 400 Senior Men braving what had become the day’s most inclement weather, with rain having set in and the course by now having been significantly chewed up, in fact the worst ever witnessed here. That proved to be no stumbling block to Tom Prentice, however, on his NEHL debut, who recorded a rousing victory in a time of 39 minutes 29 seconds for the three lap course. Prentice was followed home by Bertie Marr, also in his first Senior NEHL outing and 2nd in 39:54 Adam Pratt in 4th (41:19), all running from Slow Pack. With Lee Cuthbertson having his best cross country outing of the season in 31st from Medium (43:43), James Tilley 55th from Fast (42:23) and Ian Armstrong 62nd from Medium (45:07) to complete the team count. Andrew Hebden was next in, 100th in 46:06 from Medium, then Ben Heatley, 181st in 48:27, also from Medium, Steve Haswell, 193rd in 51:16 and Jake Parmley, 243rd in 50:37 from Medium. The Men’s team finished in an overall third place on 100 points, with Gateshead Harriers clear on the day winners (63) ahead of Tyne Bridge (90). Heaton Harrier Chris Larkin ran the day’s fastest time of 38:28. Morpeth’s Men saw their lead cut at the top of the table by two points, with Gateshead now lying second and rearranged fixtures at Lambton and Thornley Farm still to come. Clearly, there’s still work to be done. The next fixture is the rearranged Lambton Castle on Sunday 17th of this month, when hopefully the course will have dried up and the weather will have warmed. English and Scottish National Cross Country Championships
Incessant rain on Thursday, falling on already saturated ground caused the cancellation of the English National Cross Country Championships, due to be held in Shropshire on Saturday although the very late cancellation on Friday morning meant some athletes and families had already set off. It is only the third time since the Second World War that this has happened, with the other occasions not due to the conditions but to either foot and mouth disease or covid. The ECCA have now announced that the Championships will take place in September, which is likely to have an impact of course on the local XC season. Watch this space. However, the Lindsays Scottish Nationals did take place at Falkirk over the same weekend, with Morpeth’s Catriona Macdonald once again in action. Running for her Scottish club Bellahouston Road Runners, Cat finished 10th, recording a time of 38 minutes 58 seconds for the grassy 10k course, with the race won by Edinburgh AC’s Alice Goodall in 36:03. Finishing 10th in each of the last three years, she’s certainly proved to be the model of consistency, although Saturday’s time was also the fastest she has so far recorded. Osaka Marathon Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Morpeth life member Serod Batochir ran a remarkable 2 hours 10 minutes 10 seconds when representing Mongolia in the Osaka Marathon, won in a time of 2 hours 6 minutes 18 seconds by the host country’s Kiyoto Hirabayashi in some difficult conditions. Now 42 years of age, Batochir will be aiming to represent his country in the Paris Olympics this Summer – an incredible seventh Games for the well-travelled veteran. England Masters Morpeth Harrier Trevor Hodgson maintained his current run of excellent form when representing North East Masters at the England Masters Inter Area Indoor Match, held at Lee Valley, Edmonton in London on Sunday. Hodgson very comfortably won his heat of the Over 50’s 60m, posting a time of 7.48s, which was only a mere fraction adrift of his lifetime best of 7.39s, posted at the same venue seven days previous in the British Masters Championships. His next racing appointment is in Torun in Poland in three weeks’ time at the European Masters, and his current form should see him a red-hot favourite for a top podium placing. Morpeth Harriers & Athletics Club's AGM will take place on Tuesday March 26.
The meeting will take place in Morpeth Rugby Club beginning at 7.30pm. The club has a busy schedule of events across the summer - including playing host to two track and field meetings at King Edwards in June - and one of the key items of discussion will be the need to provide support for these and other events across the year. Other areas of discussion will be team management and fundraising/sponsorship to help the club meet it's growing financial commitments. Please send any other items for discussion to David Swinburne by March 19. |
Archives
March 2024
|