Northern Cross Country Relays
Morpeth’s Senior Women travelled to Sheffield on 19 October to compete in the Northern Athletics Cross Country Relays at Graves Park, where they were one of over 40 teams from across the North of England participating. In a competition won by Manchester based outfit Trafford AC in a time of 37 minutes 53 seconds for the three stage relay, they finished in a commendable thirteenth position in a time of 41 minutes 53 seconds, less than a minute off a top ten place. Poppy Buck got them off to a strong start with the team’s fastest clocking of 13 minutes 38 seconds for the two mile lap, with Lizzie Rank recording 14:11 on leg two and Rachelle Falloon bringing the team home in 13:53. Birtley’s Senior Women had a great day to come home in 2nd place overall, clocking 38:13. The Senior Men’s four stage was won by local outfit Hallamshire Harriers in 41:21 with Salford Harriers 2nd in 42:43 and Sunderland Harriers, featuring the Armstrong brothers and one Jordan Scott, late of this parish, picked up a bronze in 43:05. Disappointingly, Morpeth’s Senior Men were not represented. Full results NEHL Lambton Castle Remarkably, one of the same Senior Women’s team was back out at a windswept Lambton Castle course for the North East Harrier League the following day, where, despite fears of another cancellation due to flooded parking (as had happened at Druridge Bay the previous week), conditions proved to be better than expected, even improving as the day went on. The squally early rain proved to be at its worst for the day’s first race, the Under 11 Boys, where there were three young Morpeth Harriers having their first run in a blue and white vest, with Mason Ellison first back in 14th place, Will Fawcett 19th and Ben Hodgson 55th. The club’s best turn out was in the Under 13 Boys, where what looks to be a strong squad is developing with no less than five running. Following promotion to fast pack Mason Gaylor was 15th and Jack Dhawar and Jacob Thompson were 24th and 43rd, also from fast. Joseph Fawcett was 17th and Michael Madgwick 40th, both in their first runs for the club. The team finished in 4th place on the day and are now 5th in the team division. There was a great story in the matching U/13 Girls, where Lucy Heatley, having played a morning game of football at Cramlington, ran in the same boots she’d worn only a couple of hours beforehand, and wore a much too big for her borrowed man’s vest - but somehow still came home in 6th place! Heidi Wilkinson, like Gaylor promoted to Fast after the previous race, ran well to finish in 8th, with Zoe Tomlinson 31st and Emily Hodgson one place behind in another good squad showing, finishing 3rd on the day and, like the boys, at 5th in the team division. It was good to see Ewan Line back in action in the U/15 Boys, coming home in 9th place with Evan Laude 21st, although sadly the team missed a third counter. There was a similar story in the Girls race, with Lucy’s elder sister Faye 16th and Emma Tomlinson 27th. Oliver Tomlinson was 13th in the U/17 Boys and Ben Moll 16th, while in the Girls race Molly Roche was first back for the club in 9th. It was good to see four Morpeth vests in the U/17 Girls, with Molly followed in by Lucie Todd, 22nd, Megan Potrac, 24th and Iris Dungait, 25th, the team finishing in 5th place, also their place in the team division. There were over 350 finishers in the day’s penultimate race, the Senior and Veteran Women’s where Holly Lawrence made her Harrier League debut, collecting a richly deserved Bronze medal for her 3rd place finish. With Jane Hodgson 27th, Kirsty Burville 34th and Poppy Buck, who had also ran in Sheffield, 65th, the team finished 3rd overall behind winners Durham City once again with Birtley AC 2nd. However, it was good to see moving up the team division to 3rd, with more success surely to come. Also running were Jane Kirby, 92nd from Medium and happy to escape promotion once again to Fast Pack, Tayla Murdy, 139th from Medium, and Sarah Henry, 318th. Spare a thought for trooper Sarah, who fell on the course down by the river, continued to the finish, then found she had actually broken her right arm. Final race of the day was again the Senior Men’s, where over 450 took on the challenging three-lap, six-mile course which loops down to the River Wear and features some tough descents and even tougher climbs back up to the castle. Tom Straughan was back in competitive action for the club after several years away, coming back as first of six counters in 21st place. Also running his first Harrier League was James Deathe, 37th in his first Harrier League and certainly finding the conditions very different from his previous race, September’s Berlin Marathon. Under 20 Ethan Bond was another competing for Morpeth for the first time, having transferred from Gosforth Harriers, finishing in 94th from Fast Pack. The club’s final three counters were Liam Ramsay, 124th, Ian Armstrong, 127th, and Jake Parmley, 146th, all running from Medium Pack. The six to count team finished in 6th place overall and lost their place at the top of the division to Durham City, who look back to their determined best as a club. Also running were: Andriy Volkov, 151st from Slow; Lee Cuthbertson, 153rd from Fast; Jason Dawson, 165th from Slow; Richard Glennie, 192nd from Slow and Steve Johnstone, 315th from Slow. The next Harrier League fixture will take place at the new Mickley venue by the south bank of the Tyne near Prudhoe on Saturday 23 November. More details to follow. This venue replaces the old Aykley Heads, and is the last chance to get a competitive XC in before the North Easterns on 8 December. Full results Photos by Stuart Whitman Two members of the club travelled to Europe at the weekend to take part in high-profile competitions in Italy and Germany.
Catriona Macdonald collected another Scotland vest when competing once again in the popular if very challenging Trofeo Vanoni race in Northern Italy. A 7.2 kilometre fell run from the centre of the town of Morbegno - which includes 435 metres of sharp ascending and descending - Macdonald was part of a two person Scotland Women’s team that finished 7th overall, taking the second leg in 24:02 after first leg runner Isla Patterson had run 24:58. Full results here Meanwhile Carl Avery travelled to Frankfurt to run in the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon, which was won by Kenyan Benard Biwott in a very fast time of 2 hours 5 minutes 54 seconds. Still in the excellent form which he showed recently in Northern and National Relays, Avery himself clocked 2:17:09 for the 26.2 miles, finishing in 20th place overall and was also the second Over 35 runner. Results here NEHL rounds two and three – Druridge and Lambton With the fields that are normally reserved for car parking at Druridge Bay unusable due to last week’s heavy rain, the scheduled North East Harrier League country fixture at the venue was sadly cancelled three days before the weekend. To many close to the park this seemed a little premature, with some fine days to come, but it was out of the league’s hands and down to the park management. Hopefully, Lambton will be on THIS SUNDAY (it’s always been a Saturday there previously), though flooded car parking is what led to the cancellations last year. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. If you ran at Thornley, please remember your number; if you’re running for the first time, please check you are registered by looking at the NEHL website > Runner Info > list of this season’s packs > Morpeth Harriers. (There’s still time to register if not: contact the club via [email protected]) Directions on the dedicated NEHL Facebook page here: Start Fitness North Eastern Harrier League | Facebook or on our own. Direction links here: DH3 4PW (what3words, oval.words.pull) Alwinton Show Thankfully, the Fell Race at the Alwinton Border Shepherds’ Show went ahead on Saturday, where once again it was Morpeth Harrier and Rothbury resident Bertie Marr who took the spoils. Now studying in his first year at Sheffield University, Bertie made the journey back north up the A1 in the hope of defending the title he’d won last year but only succeeded this time after a close race with club colleague Tom Prentice, with Bertie clocking 19 minutes 27 seconds over the sharp, three mile up and down course and Tom 19:47. Rob Balmbra battled with blisters to come home fourth. Experienced Northumberland Fell Runner Karen Robertson was 1st woman in 24:46, with Morpeth’s Robyn Bennett 2nd in 25:36, and Rachel Smith, a member of Cambridge and Coleridge AC - who’d come even further than Bertie to take part - in 3rd. Lee Bennett was 14th and 2nd O/50, ahead of serial fell runners Gary Mason (30th) and Fran Naylor (51st). Leeds Abbey Dash
The following day saw the 38th running of the popular Abbey Dash in Leeds over the traditional fast and flat, out-and-back route from the city’s Victorian Town Hall to Kirkstall Abbey with over 5,500 finishing. The men’s race was won by James McMurray of St. Albans AC in a time of 28 minutes 58 seconds in a sprint finish with Charlie Brisley of Newham and Essex Beagles one second behind. There were equally fast times recorded in the women’s race, where Herne Hill Harrier Georgie Grgec clocked 31:36 and Cambridge and Coleridge’s Hannah Irwin 31:52. Some seven Morpeth Harriers formed part of the field, with an in-form Carl Avery 6th and 1st Over 35 in 29:12 and Finn Brodie 10th in 29:28. Phil Winkler was 33rd in 30:41, young Joe Dixon 38th in a personal best of 30:44 for fourth team counter, Sam Hancox 57th in 31:07, Andrew Lawrence 141st in 33:39 and Rob Hancox delighted to cross the line well under the forty minute barrier in 39:09. Berlin Marathon New member Richard Deathe recently completed September’s Berlin Marathon, clocking an excellent time of 2 hours 41 minutes and 37 seconds for 187th place. A very busy weekend of racing saw Morpeth Harriers in successful action on both Saturday and Sunday, with the club’s Senior Men travelling south for the English Road Running Association Autumn Relays while blue and white vests were also prominent in races at Kielder and Jarrow. ERRA Autumn Road Relays Another strong performance from the club’s Senior Men in the ERRA Road Relays held at Sutton Park just North of Birmingham on Saturday afternoon saw the long journey south rewarded with an outstanding top ten finish over the six challenging stages. Finn Brodie led out once again, clocking 17 minutes 21 seconds for the 5.84 kilometre leg and coming back in 11th place, but Carl Avery – who had recorded the fastest time at the qualifying Northern Relay a fortnight beforehand – moved the team right up to 4th after running one second faster. On third leg George Lowry’s 18:21 meant they moved down to 9th, but Josh Fiddaman (17:47) moved up two places on leg four and Phil Winkler, recording the same time on leg five, moved up a further two to 5th. Drafted in at relatively short notice and still not fully race fit, Sam Hancox’s 18:47 on last leg saw the club finish in 8th place of some 67 teams with an overall time of 1:47:23, an excellent placing by the team with Morpeth the only club to fly the flag for the North East region. In fact the only other team from the North of England to finish ahead of Morpeth were, perhaps unsurprisingly, Leeds City AC, for whom Olympian Emile Cairess, who had competed so strongly in the Paris Marathon in August, ran the day’s fastest time of 16:38 to move the Yorkshire outfit into a lead on leg two which they comfortably held on to, recording an overall time of 1 hour 43 minutes 36 seconds, with Shaftesbury Barnet in 2nd (1:44:19) and Cambridge and Coleridge AC in 3rd (1:44:51). t The women’s four stage relay was won by Herne Hill Harriers in 58:12 with Vale Royal 2nd and Thames Valley 3rd. Disappointingly, aside from Gateshead’s Senior Men, who were 25th here, the only other NE representation appears to have been in the U/17 Boys, where NSP finished in 14th. A good job that Morpeth, at least, are travelling. Full results Kielder Marathon Weekend Closer to home, the west of the county welcomed 3,000 competitors for the Kielder Marathon Weekend, with a range of events that included both a duathlon and a 10k race on the Saturday, while Sunday saw both half and full marathons held over the challenging circuit around the reservoir. The 10k race saw a double Morpeth victory, with Amble-based Over 40 veteran, the redoubtable Ian Harding taking the title in 33 minutes 51 seconds, while club colleague Cat Macdonald was 1st woman and 10th overall, recording 38:39. Dave Stabler also made the top ten, finishing in 8th place in 37:03, while Jane Kirby was 1st O/50 in 46:14 and Jamie Johnson 1st male O/50 in 41:46. Lindsey Quinn was 7th female runner and 47th overall in 45:57, with Rich Kirby on the comeback trail, 114th in 51:29. Good to see Emma Holt back in action too, 2nd woman in 42:29, with another returning athlete, Tom Innes, 11th in 38:41 and a Kielder ever-present Mark Snowball 13th in 39:22. Like they say, form is temporary, class permanent…Some 781 in total finished the 10k. Sunday’s half marathon was won by a visitor from Yorkshire, with Pudsey and Bramley AC’s Callum Hanson winning in 1:14:29 with Lucisa Hartley 1st woman in 1:30:39. Another regular visitor to the weekend’s racing, Andrew Hebden finished in 13th for Morpeth in 1:25:41, while Lorna Macdonald was 3rd female finisher in 1:34:03. There was another winner for the club however in the very demanding marathon, with Morpeth’s Jane Hodgson – who also won her some 13 years ago! - over five minutes ahead of the next female finisher as she came home in 10th place overall to win the women’s race in 3:16:05. First home in the race itself was Ricky Lightfoot of Ellenborough AC with a hugely impressive 2:34:24, well over ten minutes ahead of the 2nd place finisher Jack Mcatear of Eden Runners (2:49:51). 2nd woman was City of Stoke’s Chloe Hawkins in 3:22:40. Anna Wright was 3rd Over 40, 4th woman and 27th overall in 3:31:44, and Jane Briggs 233rd and 6th O/50 in 4:23:35. There were some 897 in the half marathon and 725 in the full. Well done to all blue and white finishers – an excellent showing across the board by the club. Full results Run Through Jarrow 10k Sunday morning also witnessed nearly 1000 runners taking to the streets around Jarrow and Hebburn for the Run Through Jarrow 10k. With the same model of an elite A race and a mass participation B race that the organisers had used for the Morpeth 10k in June, the A race was won by Birchfield Harrier Omar Ahmed in an outstanding 29 minutes and 15 seconds, with Sunderland Harrier Joe Armstrong 2nd, late of this parish, in 30:39 and Morpeth’s Alex Brown 3rd (30:49). Liverpool Pembroke Sefton athlete Kirstly Langley travelled over the country to win the women’s race in 35:03, with Houghton Harrier Charlotte Dillon 2nd in 35:32 and local lass Alex Sneddon 3rd in 36:34. Also running for Morpeth in the A race were Connor Marshall, 8th in 31:55, Kirsty Burville, 1st O/40 in 40:48 and James Dixon, 52nd in 36:37, all having good runs. There were over 800 in the B race, won by Michael Donkin with Olivia Clark 1st woman in 40:42. Laura Mclean was 138th in 45:49, running with Sophie Ward, 150th in 45:50, with both running pbs. Results Cross country action got under way at the weekend with the first round of the 2024/25 season in the North East Harrier League, sponsored once again by Start Fitness.
Where the previous year’s first fixture have traditionally been held at Wrekenton, this year organisers, mindful of the great difficulties caused by last winter’s rains, switched the opening races to Thornley Farm, just South of Peterlee - and were rewarded with some fine autumn sunshine over a course firmer than many could remember in a long while (although the lake at the flat bottom end of the course looks like it’s there for good). From Morpeth’s point of view, it was good to see five eager Under 11s out in the day’s first race, several of them running in a blue and white vest for the first time. They were led home by Mason Ellison, competing in blue and white for the first ever time and looking to the manor born in 18th place, clocking 6 minutes 49 seconds for the one mile course, with support coming from Will Fawcett (24th), Luke Thompson (24th), Jacob Raper (66th) and Jared Derbyshire (72nd). One of the finest runs of the day for the club came from Mason Gaylor in the Under 13 Boys, who was the day’s overall winner, running from the Slow Pack, with team support coming from Jack Dhawar (35th) and Jacob Thompson (45th) and setting a towering example of team spirit following on from their trip to Blackpool last week. Mason’s achievement was matched by that of club colleague Heidi Wilkinson, a winner also, this time in the U/13 Girls, although disappointingly she was the club’s only representative. We need to look to getting a full squad around her in future fixtures. Faye Heatley also had a fine run, in her first race as an U/15, to come home 2nd with Emma Tomlinson 25th. Sadly they also missed a counter. The Junior races were completed in the U/17s where Ben Moll was 16th and Emma’s older brother Oliver 17th in the Boys, with Molly Roche 5th, Megan Potrac 22nd and Lucie Todd 23rd in the Girls. Great to see a full squad out in the U/17 girls for the first time in several seasons – again, something to build on. Penultimate race was once again the Senior and Veteran Women, where changes to the rules for this season meaning U/20s were now joining the field of over 300, three of these featuring in the top four, although the winner was the experienced Lydia Turner of Birtley, taking just over 23 minutes to complete the roughly four mile course. Morpeth’s contingent of eight were led once again by club stalwart Jane Hodgson, finishing in 22nd place from Fast Pack with the fourth fastest overall time of the day and fastest O/40, with Nicola McCoy 36th from Slow Pack. Nicola also had a great run, and was 2nd O/55 also. The team count of four was made up by Poppy Buck, 46th and Robyn Bennett, 72nd, both of these coming from Fast Pack. Good to see a strong showing of Morpeth vests too, with Jane Briggs 83rd from Slow and third O/55, Kirsty Burville 107th from Fast, Lizzie Rank 141st from Fast and Sarah Henry 269th from Slow. Final race of the day saw the day’s largest field of 415, although this number, like the size of the Women’s field, was noticeably down on previous seasons, where there’s often been 600 plus (one suspects a combination of the unpopularity of the venue and perhaps the clash with a televised NUFC game may have contributed). Morpeth vests were also very much to the fore here, with Josh Fiddaman winning in a time of 30 minutes 16 seconds over the three-lap, six-mile course, and U/20 Joe Close also making the top ten in 8th place. Josh’s time, which saw him win by over two minutes, was the day’s fastest, with Joe’s fourth fastest O/20. The team count of six was made up by Liam Ramsay (14th from Slow on his debut), O/35 Rob Balmbra (35th from Fast), Dom Harris (36th from Slow, again on debut) and Lee Bennett (86th from Slow), with the club putting up a strong defence of their team title – one for the last three years running – at a venue which is amongst the most challenging. There were three further Morpeth runs, with Ian Armstrong 109th from Medium, Jason Dawson back on the XC after a season on the track in 140th and Lee Cuthbertson 179th following promotion to Fast Pack at Alnwick in the final fixture last year. Well done to all who turned out: it’s always good to get the first one out of the way, but as we keep saying – it’s all about the numbers, especially in the Young Athletes races, and we need to keep building on these. Action moves close to home in a fortnight’s time at Druridge Bay, where Morpeth will be looking to build further at what is pretty much a home fixture for us only fifteen minutes away. Remember it’s a Sunday, however, and that parking is both chargeable and at a premium. If you ran at Thornley, don’t forget your number: these are £10 for on the day replacements now and the club doesn’t pay for those who either threw it away or put it in the wash… Perhaps worth mentioning also that the league had to look around for a new chip timing system this year following the retirement of the guy from Sunderland Strollers who did it so effectively for so long. Results now appear on Timing Up North, but don’t show either clubs – unless you apply one of the filters – nor teams, which the old one did very quickly of course. Teams will appear ‘in due course’ on the NEHL site when someone has had the chance to draw breath and work them out. Full results here and link to photos by Stuart Whitman here. See you at Druridge; you can check if you’re registered or not here and if you’re not, please email Peter. |
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February 2025
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