Runners defied the worst conditions experienced at a cross country in the region for a long, long time to take part in the North East Cross Country Championships held at Temple Park, South Shields on Saturday.

With further rain on the day only adding to the challenge of what is a normally firm course - but which this year featured knee-deep in mud in several places -  the three team and two individual Gold medals, allied to two team Bronzes, three individual Silvers and two Bronzes, won by the club were the icing on the cake of what was a memorable, if demanding, day for all who travelled.
 
The first of those two Golds were in the Under 17 Boys race, were Elliot Kelso defied the conditions to run away from the rest of the field for what proved to be in the end quite a comfortable win with a 12-second margin, also leading his team to victory.
 
Elliot was supported by Oliver Tomlinson, 6th, and Joe Close, 15th, the team finishing ahead of nearest rivals North Shields Polytechnic Harriers.
 
There was a further team Gold in the U/20 Junior Men, won by Josh Blevins of Gateshead Harriers, with Joe Dixon again proving how much he likes the country and running very well over the terrain to pick up an individual Silver.
 
With Liam Roche, Ethan Phillips and Bertie Marr in 5th, 6th and 7th, the team secured victory over nearest rivals this time Durham City Harriers.
 
With all four finishers having been members of the winning KEVI team in the English Schools Cross Country Cup the previous weekend, it has certainly been a demanding time for the group who will now perhaps be able to look forward to some down time over the festive period.
 
The final team Gold was in the day’s penultimate race, the Senior Men’s held over the day’s longest distance of three laps and over seven miles.
 
With Sam Hancox and Will Cork in the thick of the action from the off, the leading group of six were soon detached from the rest of the field of several hundred, but a powerful run by Houghton Harrier Cameron Allan saw him surge away on the last lap to win by a 40-second margin, with Cork and Hancox collecting much enjoyed Silver and Bronze medals.
 
With six to count for the team prize, a dominant club performance saw the next four counters in 11th (Connor Marshall), 15th (Tom Balsdon), 16th (Rob Balmbra) and 23rd (Peter Smallcombe) for a total team count of a miserly 70 points, with old rivals Sunderland Harriers in 2nd on 116 and Gateshead Harriers in 3rd (157).
 
Picking up the team award for the twelfth successive year, the team were delighted to receive the trophy from club president Jim Alder MBE – who could, of course, remember worse conditions that he had himself run in!
 
An excellent team turn out saw no less than eight other finishers for the club with Matty Briggs just missing out to Peter in 24th; Andy Lawrence in 30th; Ali Douglas 36th; Anthony Jannetta 74th; Lee Cuthbertson 78th; Ian Armstrong 80th; Lee Bennett 88th and Ben Heatley 89th. All of these would have made team counts of many other clubs.
 
There was a further individual Gold medal in the U/20 Women’s race, with triathlete and Leeds University student Millie Breese making the journey home to pick up the trophy for the second successive year – fortunate, as she had completely forgotten she still had it!
 
There were also team Bronzes in the U/13 Boys and the Senior Women races.
 
Ewan Line picked up both individual and team medals in the U/13s, finishing 3rd overall but understandably frustrated having been misdirected when leading the race, although able to smile about it afterwards. His day will surely come.
 
Ewan’s team mates were Evan Laude, 30th, George Moll, 34th and Jack Dhawar, 35th, with Darlington taking the team Gold ahead of Elswick Harriers.
 
Last race of the day was the Senior Women’s, which was won as last year by Middlesbrough’s Philippa Stone, who produced perhaps the performance of the day to win by over a minute, a remarkable run given that the course had by this point cut up even further.
 
She was chased home by Cat Macdonald, who picked up a Silver medal for the second successive year and also led her team to Bronze medals, with good packing behind her seeing Lizzie Rank in 22nd, Lorna Macdonald 24th, Robyn Bennett 27th and Kirsty Burville 43rd.
 
Tyne Bridge Harriers, with 14 finishers, were team winners on 45 points with Durham City 2nd on 65.
 
The club’s U/15 Boys were unlucky to miss out on medals earlier by only four points when coming in as 4th team, with Ben Moll 14th, Harry Douglass 33rd and Thomas Roche 65th, but it was great to see a full, competitive team again in advance of January and February’s fixtures.
 
Emma Tomlinson ploughed a lone furrow for the U/15 Girls, coming home in 13th, with younger sister Zoe 32nd in the U/13s and Faye Heatley having a good run for 9th. (Again, a shame no team count.)
 
Finally, the U/11’s opening races saw a Morpeth debut for Jacob Raper, younger brother of Lucy, who came in 41st - and will surely remember his debut in the conditions – and a super race by Heather Baillie, who was 7th.
 
Well done all, runners, parents and helpers, who turned out.

See Stuart Whitman's gallery of images from the race here.
 
Simonside Cairns Fell Race
 
There were further challenging conditions the following day for runners taking part in the Simonside Cairns Fell Race.
 
With the eleven mile route also including some 1772 feet of climbing, it was certainly not one for the faint-hearted.
 
Northumberland Fell Runners were at the sharp end, perhaps unsurprisingly, with Chris Larking winning by over five minutes in 1 hour 14 minutes 38 seconds with Craig Jones 2nd and Morpeth’s Richie Hughes 4th.
 
Meanwhile Matthew Briggs, who had placed just outside the Morpeth counters when finishing 24th at Temple Park, made the most of his weekend home by taking in the race, coming in in 5th place. (After the previous day, that was some performance!)
 
There was some tight Morpeth/NFR packing behind, with Anna Wright 79th, Gwenda Cavill 80th, Les Cavill 81st, Claire Calverley 82nd and Jane Briggs 84th.
 
Malaga Marathon
 
Meanwhile, over in warmer climes of over 18 degrees in Spain, Carl Avery was first British finisher in the Malaga Marathon on Sunday, completing the 26.2 mile course in a time of 2 hours 21 minutes 39 seconds in a race won by Charles Minera in 2:08:54. 

The annual Blyth Sands Race was once again sold out, although from the numbers who took part it looked as though a fair few of those entered took one look out of the window in the morning and maybe thought ‘not today’.
 
Run over the approximately five-mile distance of Blyth to Seaton Sluice and back, and using once again the unique age and gender based handicapping system that makes the race so distinct, this year’s race was one of the closest for a while with the winner coming from a 40+ male veteran for a change.
 
Disappointingly perhaps, only three Morpeth Harriers were out this time with a tale of mixed fortunes. Over 65 Gavin Bayne was off first off a 9-minute handicap and he certainly looked in with a shout after turning round the oar at the Sluice end, shoulder to shoulder with NSP triathlete Steph Maclean-Dann and only a hundred yards off early leader Julia Carnaffin, running off a generous 12 minute handicap but soon to be reeled in.
 
With the stagger unwinding however, Heaton’s O/60 Ian Norman, in great recent shape, looked to be on the charge and set with a good chance of overhauling both and taking the win.
 
But another NSP athlete was having an even better run, James Anderson, running off only a 2-minute handicap, getting the drop on everyone to pass all and sundry by Maggie’s Burn and take the win, and also recording the fastest overall time of the day, 28:16.
 
Talented Houghton U/20 Charlotte Dillon ran fastest female time of the day, 32:38, finishing in 4th just after Maclean-Dann with only 4 seconds separating.
 
Gavin finished 6th on the day, but took consolation from the fact that he didn’t have to run back to Morpeth afterwards  -  as was at one time the tradition for the club’s Seniors in serious training for the Morpeth to Newcastle (having, of course, also run there).
 
Dave Stabler, in the 45+ cat, in his first run back after a recurrence of injury, also had a good run, finishing 13th.  
 
Meanwhile O/60 Peter Scaife, after a promising first mile, made the classic mistake of failing to recce the course, and, seduced into thinking he could get round the bottom end of the second of the three notorious groynes, soon found himself waist deep in the North Sea for 50 yards. ‘I couldn’t feel anything below the waist thereafter, and I just couldn’t get going again,’ he admitted ruefully later, finishing in 85th.
 
Some 185 finished with NSP winning the team prize over Heaton.

Full race results are available here.
 
Angust Tait Memorial Hexhamshire Hobble
 
Conditions were, if anything, even worse on the other side of the county for the annual Hexhamshire Hobble.
 
Starting and finishing from the village of Allendale and taking in a 10.5 mile circuit of a snowbound Hexhamshire Common with some 1250 feet of climbing included, this year’s race was won impressively by Northumberland Fell Runner Craig Jones in 1 hour 10 minutes 22 seconds with Morpeth’s Richie Hughes, in his NFR vest, 2nd just over a minute behind.
 
Tyne Bridge veteran Alison Dargie was the female winner in 1:23:29, and also 17th place.
 
Richard Kirby had an excellent run to come home 45th in 1:31:32 and, Gary Mason, also in his NFR vest, was 60th in 1:35:32, despite taking a tumble (‘I was busy watching someone else take a tumble’), with Neil McAnany 75th in 1:38:30.
 
Also running well and defeating the conditions were Anna Wright, 88th in 1:42:43, who just finished ahead of Nicola McCoy in 90th (1:42:57).
 
Some 146 hardy souls finished. 

Four athletes from the region made the trip to Cork, in Ireland on Sunday 3 December, to take part in the annual Newmarket 5k, not to be confused with the English location in Cambridge, more known for the sport of horseracing.
They included three from Morpeth Harriers, and one from Blyth Running Club, namely, Carl Avery, George Lowry, Peter Smallcombe, and Ellis Hetherington.
All four were representing England, and Avery was the first to finish, coming home in second place, only a mere two seconds adrift of Kilkenny’s Cathal O’Reilly.
Avery’s finishing time was 14m17s.
Lowry finished in ninth place, posting a finishing time of 15m02s, with Blyth’s Hetherington coming home in 12th spot, one place ahead of Smallcombe, who was four seconds adrift in 15m08s.
The event, which was run in a rural district of North West Cork, attracted a record field of 495 finishers.

Saturday marked a superb day for six athletes from the ranks of Morpeth Harriers, and also Senior Boy representatives of King Edward VI School, when after several years of attempting, they carried off the English Schools Cross Country Cup Championship of 2023, held at Woodbridge School in Suffolk.
Led by Will de Vere Owen, who finished an individual fourth, the squad produced an eleven-point winning margin over second placed Judd School of Kent, with The Sixth Form College of Farnborough in Hampshire a further eleven points adrift in third place.
Further scoring support also came from Joe Dixon (7th), Liam Roche (23rd), and Ethan Phillips (24th).
Also competing in the Senior Boys for King Edward were Bertie Marr (53rd), and Ryan Davies (79th).
A total of 155 finishers faced the starter in the Senior Boys event.
Another excellent North East result came in the Junior Girls event, where Birtley AC’s Olivia Murphy, representing Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, won by a nine second margin.
As a direct results of their efforts, the King Edward Senior Boys squad have won themselves a trip to Kenya in 2024, where they will have the added honour of representing their country at an International event scheduled to be staged there, exact date, still to be confirmed.