Club cross country captain, Kirsty Longley was selected to represent England at this year’s British & Irish Masters Cross Country international held in Londonderry at the weekend.
Kirsty went off aggressively and led for the first half lap, but she was competing against a quality field. She made a determined effort to catch the leaders in the final straight, but had to settle for 4th place, her best ever finish. Ahead of her was Claire McCarthy (Ireland) who has represented her country at the world championships this year and Claire Martin (England), a 7 times winner of the event. To finish only 10 sec behind the winner & 4 sec behind 3rd place was a tremendous achievement by Kirsty who finished the 6K course in a time of 22.47. Her quality training with coach, Mark Bleasdale, is now paying dividends
Kirsty collected an individual bronze in the veteran 40 age category and team gold for England. She can now look forward with optimism to the Cross Challenge event at Liverpool’s Sefton Park this weekend where Kirsty will be competing against the best runners in the country.
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