Eight teams from the club travelled down the A1 to Nottinghamshire on Saturday to take part in the National Cross Country Relays. Held at Berry Hill, Mansfield, where they have been staged every year since 1989, bar 2020, there were over 1000 teams entered across Young Adult and Senior categories with 205 in the Senior Men’s event and 145 in the Senior Women’s. This year’s event was also used as a build up to the Trials in November for the GB team for the European Cross Championships. The course itself was a mixture of parkland and wooded trails which includes a lot of undulating sections, with the weather on the day breezy and chilly although thankfully largely dry. The Under 17 girls event saw Morpeth’s first team in action over a 2.5 kilometre course with what was perhaps the individual performance of the day for the club by Alnwick based triathlete Millie Breese, who has been in fine form all year. After early legs by Caitlin Flanagan, who ran 10 minutes 16 seconds for 49th place on leg 1, and Abi Leiper, whose 9:50 moved the club up to 34th, a very determined run by Millie saw her move the club all of 21 places up the rankings for a final position just outside the top ten. Her time of 9:15 was the fifth fastest for the leg and saw the team finish in a very respectable 13th place with a total time of 29:22. Some 53 complete teams from across the country ran with Vale Royal AC winners in 27:21. There were two teams involved next from the Under 17 boys, and the A team were able to go narrowly one better to finish in 12th. Running over a 3k course, on first leg Will de Vere Owen came in 12th in 9:25 with James Tilley recording 10:12 for the B team over the same leg (54th). Ryan Davies’s clocking of 9:54 saw the team slip marginally to 16th, however a strong run by Liam Roche for the B of 9:46 moved them up to 33rd. On last leg, Bertie Marr’s time of 9:33, the 8th fastest of the leg for the day, moved them back into 12th place. Matty Walton moved the B team up a further seven places for a final position of 26th (9:55), with the B team having the satisfaction at least of being the highest place B team in the category. Some 64 teams ran. The event was won by Cambridge and Coleridge AC with an overall time of 27:34, Morpeth’s two teams recording 28:52 and 29:54. Morpeth’s two other teams, the Under 15 Boys and the Under 13 Girls, put up respectable performances and will have benefited from the higher standard of national competition. The U/15 Boys were led out by Oliver Tomlinson on leg 1 (6:54) and came back in 25th place. Missing Oliver Calvert, Eliot Mavir gamely stepped up and didn’t disgrace himself with 8:01 for 48th on leg 2. Joe Close on leg 3 got the team up some 15 places to a final position of 33rd out of 65 teams with 7:07. The team’s overall time was 22:03, with Chiltern Harriers winning the competition in 20:13. The U/13 Girls team of Emma Tomlinson (8:27 for 46th on leg 1), Molly Roche (8:53 for 43rd) on leg 2 and Megan Potrac (9:20) finished in 46th place with an overall time of 22:28. Liverpool A were the team winners in 22:28. Final event of the day with the biggest numbers was the Senior Men’s relay, held over a two lap 5k course for teams of four. First up for Morpeth was Cameron Boyek, by his own admission not a fan of cross country and also still finding his way back gradually to competitive action, but happy to turn out. Moving smoothly over the first lap and looking good, Boyek held 4th place and was just out of touch with the leaders. He slipped back to 14th on leg 2 but did run an impressive 15:40, with Derby AC taking an early lead with the leg 1 runner recording the fastest time of the day in fact (15:07). In his first taste of national standard competition meanwhile, Conor Marshall ran a measured 17:54 on leg 1 for an incomplete B team, working his way steadily through the pack ahead on the 2nd lap for 85th place. Matthew Briggs took over on leg 2 and certainly didn’t look out of place. Catching some in front and being caught by some behind, Matthew dropped only one place with his 16:27 clocking. Despite the loss of his chip timing strap at the changeover, Phil Winkler had a good run on leg 3 with 16:42 to keep the team in 17th place. Jordan Scott ran 17:33 on leg 4 with the team just dropping out of the top twenty, finishing in 23rd place. The race was won by Shaftesbury Barnet in an overall time of 1 hour 2 minutes and 58 seconds, with teams from the South of England, in the form of Highgate Harriers and Aldershot and Farnham District, also filling the 2nd and 3rd places. Morpeth’s cumulative time was 1:06:25, with a solid and workmanlike performance by all the team despite the absence of some big name runners. Maddeningly, the club narrowly lost out to Gateshead Harriers in the bragging rights for 1st North East team however, with Gateshead narrowly pipping Morpeth in 21st place by a mere 9 seconds! An incomplete NSP team were the only other NE club in action, with neither Sunderland Harriers or Tyne Bridge turning out. Given the high turn out of teams from the South, many of whom will have travelled further (including one from Cornwall), it’s puzzling that more NE teams are not taking part. The Senior Women’s race over three stages that preceded was won by Aldershot and Farnham from Charnwood AC and Lincoln Wellington in a time of 30:21. Teams from Elswick Harriers – with Judith Nutt on leg 1 – and NSP ran from the NE, with the Poly pipping Elswick in 58th and 59th places by the narrowest of margins. All this after the Poly bus had broken down on the way out of Wetherby Services, the runners having to be rescued by Gosforth Harriers and a small fleet of taxis! Getting a Morpeth Senior Women’s team out next year should certainly be a priority.  Morpeth's Cameron Boyek with the pack at the start of the Senior Men's race Comments are closed.
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