Creatively described as the North West Road Relays, warm weather and little wind greeted the teams from all over the North West in Delamere Forest for the 2016 Championships. Apart from the fact that the course was actually all on Trail and there was a ‘little’ punishing hill at the finish – twice for the Seniors, there was plenty of good racing with lots of support around the Course.

All RESULTS

The day kicked off extremely well for the Harriers U11 Girls Team who finished 3rd overall in the North West, picking up a Bronze Medal and taking the Lancashire Title to win themselves a Gold Medal. A great performance by Kate Cookson, Caroline Woodworth in only her third ever competition and Holly Turner in her second. Caroline also finished with the 6th fastest Leg of the day whilst in the Lancashire Championships Caroline was the fastest runner with Kate and Holly tied for 2nd fastest. (U11 RESULTS)

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(L-R Caroline – Holly – Kate)

An injury mean that in the U13 Girls the Harriers had one complete and one incomplete team on the day with Eleesha Charnley (14.22), Hollie Cubbon (15.35) and Leah Hoole (15.05) taking 7th place over all in the North West out of 28 teams contesting the Championships with Eleesha taking the 7th fastest Leg of the day. The three of them earned Blackburn their third medal of the day finishing in Silver Medal place in the Lancashire Championships. Christie Sturgess (17.07) and Kirsty Coleran (17.07) put in very good efforts running as an incomplete team and earning good race experience. (U13 RESULTS)

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(L-R Kirsty Coleran – Christie Sturgess- Hollie Cubbon – Eleesha Charnely – Leah Hoole)

Maddie Elliott (13.43), Hannah Cookson (14.45) and Natalya Irvine (14.40) made up the Harriers U17 Women’s Team finishing 8th out of the sixteen Teams competing. Maddie posted the 5th fastest Leg in the Lancashire Championships and the girls efforts gave them the Lancashire Silver Medal and made it the fourth medal of the day for the Club. (U17 RESULTS)

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(L-R Natalya Irvine – Hannah Cookson – Maddie Elliott)

Sixty five teams lined up in the Senior Women’s Race with the Harriers pulling off a pretty good performance considering that Leg 2 athlete Grace Handley hadn’t raced for over nine months and Leg 3 athlete Beckie Taylor has been carrying an injury for quite a while and was also short of racing fitness. Carly Edwards kicked off Leg (1) in 31st spot with a time of 30.05, followed on Leg 2 by Grace Handley (28.32) and Beckie Taylor (30.30) on Leg 3. Grace’s time was 6th fastest in the Lancashire Championships and the teams efforts gave them a Bronze Medal which was a good result for them. (Senior Women RESULTS)

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In the U13 Boys Kyle Pomfret, Rory Teare and George Whittaker made up the Harriers Team with new member Zak Mala also having a run in his first competition. Kyle kicked off in Leg (1) with a time of 13.35 with Rory on Leg (2) 14.19 and George (16.32) on Leg (3). Zak ran a time of 16.47 in his first ever competitive race. The lads finished 18th overall in the North West Championships but picked up a Silver Medal in the Lancashire Championships to register the fifth medal of the day for the Club.

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Two Teams contested the U15 Boys with the ‘A’ Team of Matt Ramsden (12.20), Jamie Teare (12.32) and Leon Thomas (12.27) all complimenting one another with similar times to just miss out on a Bronze Medal in the North West Championships placing 4th and their performance was good enough for them to win Silver in the Lancashire Championships taking the Club tally of Medals to six on the day. The ‘B’ Team saw new member Sam Hodkinson post the fastest time of the Team (12.39) with Ethan Joyce on Leg (2) running 14.37 over a distance that he hasn’t competed on before and Bradley Meikleham on Leg (3) in his first ever competition (13.44). The ‘B’ Team finished 18th overall and 5th in the Lancashire Championships. In the top ten fastest times of the Lancashire Championships Matt Ramsden came 3rd (12.20), Leon Thomas 4th (12.27), Jamie Teare 6th (12.32) and Sam Hodkinson 8th (12.39) which is very good consistency and packing. (U15 RESULTS). Joe Gebbie ran on his own in the U17 Men’s Race which was his first ever Relay Race and did pretty well to finish 17th in Leg (1) with a time of 27.52. (U17 RESULTS).

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Seventy six Teams in the Senior Men’s Championships won by Liverpool in a time of 1hr 31.21. The Harriers had three teams out on the day finishing 13th (‘A’ Team 1hr 37.02) – 24th (‘B’ Team 1hr 41.44) and 41st (‘C’ Team 1hr 48.11). (Senior Men RESULTS) – in the Lancashire Championships the Teams finished 5th – 6th – 10th respectively.

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Zac Howe led off the ‘A’ Team handing over in 14th place (23.28) to Jack Hindle (23.39) handing over in 15th to Andy Buttery (24.57) holding 15th place to Shaun Livesey (24.58) picking up two places for 13th.

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Matt Nuttall led the ‘B’ Team on Leg (1) in a time of 25.16 (39th) handing over to Paul Guinan in 34th (25.56) and then Tom Blaney who pulled back 8 places (26th) in a time of 25.01 with Derek Reilly in his first competition for the Harriers picking up another two places with a time of 25.31.

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The ‘C’ Team saw Conrad McKee (25.31) start off in 40th spot handing over to Karl Billington who reeled in eleven runners to take the team through to 29th (25.01), then new Club Member Ben Costello (28.07) coming in 36th with John Cookson taking the last leg in a time of 29.32 (41st).

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