Red Rose X/C Witton Park Sat 11th Oct

The cross country season started in earnest with a well packed program and good turn out at Witton Park for this the first race of the Red Rose league. The club had a super turnout with the club tent the centre of activity, creating the commenardarie which gives the club a buzz. The ladies race came first with Katie Ingram (21.21) having to use her now acquired track speed to overtake Carly Needham in the run in to win the race. Katie had problems with her knee in the early part of the week, but finished pleased with her run and no re-occurrence of her injury. A keen tussle for the next club place was finally won again in the finishing straight as Emma Perrin (24.01) just edged past Lisa Heyes (24.05) both ladies were very happy with their performance. Packing right behind Lisa was Suzanne Budgett (24.12 & 1st 0/45) having a super run, and showing some of her old form again. Caroline Scholes (24.44) was next just 32 seconds behind Suzanne, and pleasantly surprised with her run, after being a little apprehensive about the course. Sarah Norgate (24.49) still not back to her old form – as she gets over her Achilles injury – but good enough to chase Caroline hard, and was only 5 seconds behind at the finish. Really nice to See Linda Webb (28.40) back racing after a long lay off and finishing strongly in 39th, and with Nicole Kirkham in 53rd running a super 30.41 and Chrissy Sweatman (31.20) running well in 58th, it was a super turn out of the ladies who took both the ladies and vets team awards.

In the men’s race Gary Priestley showed that he has moved up a notch since last year as he raced to a well earned victory in 37.51. Last years league winner James Kovaks of Salford was second in (38.19). James Kevan (38.55) worked hard for his third place having had a lean training spell of late, but hung on well to his position. Dave Milliken (39.29) ran well and just missed out on first vet by a few seconds. Our fourth counter and showing some good form was Martin Jones (41.03), nice to have Martin back and supporting the team. Second to Gary’s run must be Graham Schofields 19th place in 42.06 and first vet 0/50, Graham seems to go from strength to strength, great run. Making up the five man team was the ever present Steve Nolan (42.42) who also took the first O/45 award. We had twenty one runners in the race and again took both the team and vet team awards, not a bad start to the cross country season !

Full results for all our athletes can be found on :
http://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2008/rr081.htm

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RR Blackburn