Harrier Isaac Crowned Greater Manchester Cross-Country Champion
December is a month for muddy cross-country races and the previous weekend saw both the Lancashire cross-country championships at Towneley Park in Burnley, as well as the Greater Manchester equivalent which took place at Leigh Sports Village. The Lancashire races saw some creditable performances in the senior men’s event over 9.8km where Rob Hope, who had expected more mud, clearly found the conditions to his liking as he took first V50 and Adrian Bramham was third V60 whilst James Titmuss and Mark Walsh came home well up the field and Janet Rashleigh was second V60 in the senior women’s race over 6.5km. Some good efforts were also made in the juniors, particularly with three participating in the girls’ U15 race over 4km as Ava Winstanley came 7th whilst the Reids, Isobel and Millie, were separated by less than a minute whilst Mark Titmuss reached the top half of the field in the boys’ U17 race over 5.8km.
Leigh also saw a decent set of showings, where Charlotte Wilkinson was seventh in the women’s U20 over around 5km and Kitty Crossland was half-way up the field over 4km in the girls’ U15 where Charlotte Lightbrown also gained valuable experience. Younger still, Amelie Wormald produced a run of real talent in winning the girls U13s over around 3km in splendid style, winning by over 20 seconds and indeed was the only runner to break 12 minutes. In the senior men’s event, James Scott-Farrington also put in a strong performance to come 18th out of 58 but the most notable performance of the week came in the same race as Isaac Battye rounded off a fine year by winning the seniors event whilst preventing a clean sweep of the podium by Salford Harriers. Over a course of approximately 10 kilometres, Battye put in a commanding show to hold off four from Salford behind him and win the championships in 31:41.
Nine different parkruns in north-western England were covered by intrepid Harriers this weekend. Danny Hope came third at Lyme Park on their hilly trail course in 20:31, Paul Murray was top V80 at Witton by over a quarter-of-an-hour, finishing in 44:23, whilst three turned up at Worsley almost at the same time with Andrew Storey, Jeanette Lewis and Gordon Stone getting around in 27:31, 28:19 and 28:27 respectively. Andrew Crickmore broke the 25-minute barrier at Clitheroe Castle by four seconds.
Two were at the usual stomping ground at Haigh as Isaac Parker did 20:20 to see himself in fourth and Gillian Smith did 38:37. The Seddons went to Preston where Rob came second in 18:06 and Mark did 25:49. Rob Jackson swerved away from Peel and popped up at Sale Water, coming in third overall and first V60 in 19:24 whilst six other Harriers turned up at Peel, Harry Yates and Marcus Taylor having an excellent battle of youth versus experience which the younger Yates edged by four seconds in 18:25. Louis Yates handed in his barcode after 21:22, Jason Middleton got home in 24:26, Tony Hesketh got under the thirty-minute mark by eight seconds and Steve Jackson just missed the same mark in 30:20. Nick Kelly came home seventh at Worden in 20:32 where Sandra Kelly was first woman home in 24:28, but fellow press stalwart Sam Fairhurst was first over the line in 18:54.
