The ice and snow from freezing January was melted with a super hot 3000m performance by Tony O’Brien, who completed the Sheffield course in 8:55.57, which was a great start to the indoor season.
Over in Spain, the Valencia 10k produced a dramatic start with a pile up at the beginning which hampered a number of athletes, including Se Loughlin, who ended up somewhere at the bottom of the pile. It was still a great experience and a decent performance coming in 281 out of 12000 and 7th U20.
Thomas Harkin continued his park run successes with a win at Kew Woods, making it 27 times he’s 1st finished there. Only 4 behind is Joanna Durkin, who has been 1st female no less than 23 times and leads the way.
On the subject of Park Run, it was fabulous to see Debbie Crook return to races. After a year out, she finished 1st female and 15th overall in 20:12 at Crosby Park Run. What a great bit of news for the new year!
Another of our top female athletes, Lisa Gawthorne was 1st female at Wavertree in the Liverpool South 10k. Despite horrendous conditions she smashed the course record and finished in 39:05 (without the umbrella).
The Northern Cross Country championships took place last weekend with a number of out athletes taking part. It was great to see our U13 Tom Freeman return after a month out and he put in battling performance in the mud at Witton Park. Special mention to Aidan Berry, running at the lower age group in the U17 men despite being poorly, finishing the race showing great character.
In the U15 boys, Daniel Procter and Reuben Anderson ran as a team of two with Daniel finishing 1 place and 16 seconds ahead on a really tough course. Both are representing West Lancs on Feb 4th on the same course, so great practice and at least they’re used to the mud!
Chloe Leather was our sole representative in the senior women. She finished a strong 48th out of the 270 field. In the senior men race we fielded a full team and finished 27th overall. Ross Harrison finished a really positive 32nd of 500 followed by Dan Jones and Thomas Harkin (I’m sure there is more than one of him as he seems to be at every race). Dan ran well as he makes his comeback from sunnier climes of Spain to a dank East Lancashire finished well in the top half. Tom Mattack, Chris Pedder and Mark Hudson made up the team, all finishing the 9.5k course in under 55 mins and all with their shoes intact. So, no Cinderella audition for Mark Hudson and the team which was no mean feat in the mud as some finishers returned home with either no shoes or one shoe on.
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