Saturday was quite an historic day in many ways. Witton Park was the venue for a joint cross country fixture between the Mid Lancs and Red Rose Cross country Leagues and featuring a new course put together by Blackburn Harriers Richard Taylor. The new course took advantage of the reserve field, that had in fact been used at one time in the distant past. This additional element also had a stream crossing which was a feature of the race with one athlete telling us “what acracking course today proper cross country especially with river crossing“. One Club participating commented “Can I just add how smoothly everything went yesterday, many positive comments were made by our runners about the organisation, course and parking” and there were many other positive comments too. Big fields with a lot of quality races, sunshine for a large part of the day, the enthusiasm of all of the voluneteer marshals – 32 in total – officials over 20 in number from both Leagues and refereed by Blackburn Harriers Lee Thompson meant that the day was an enjoyable and successful event for sure. 71 Blackburn Harriers competed on the day plus all of the Marshals and course builders that came from the Harriers too, so a great performance by the Club on top of the individual and team wins secured throughout the day.

MID LANCS RESULTS — RED ROSE RESULTS

PHOTOS ON BLACKBURN HARRIERS FACEBOOK PAGE — HERE

The Harriers U11 Boys Harry Holden, Noah Nestor, Finn Dickinson, Fletcher Parkinson, Arthur Mason and Bradley Dacre placed 5th out of seven teams in Red Rose and 8th in the Mid Lancs League whilst the U11 Girls featuring Sophie Douglas, Evelyn Rae, Ella Banks, Scarlett Hamil, Pippa Blackburn, India Gooden, Eleanor Dacre, Ruby Philips, and Scarlet Cothliff came 6th in the Mid Lancs and 4th in the Red Rose. It was very impressive to see so many U11 youngsters — 15 in total with 6 boys and 9 girls – out and for most of them, their very first taste of cross country running.

Ther U13 Boys had a very good day – Max Unthank leading them home to a win in the Red Rose out of 6 teams –  backed up by team mates Oliver North and Theo Addy and 4th in the Mid Lancs out of 11 teams. Our U13 Girls lead by Amelia Pacelli alongside Darcie Belshaw, Hannah Moore, Hanna Krolikowska, and Esme Krige took 4th spot out of 7 teams in the Red Rose and 7th out of 11 teams in the Mid Lancs.

There was a very good race in the U15 Girls which saw Millie Jordan in 2nd place lead the team with Emma Robertshaw (10th), Lyra Krige (13th), Agatha Taylor (19th), Lottie Hesketh (20th), Hetty Green (35th) and Bella McCredie (36th) to take the team win in the Red Rose and place 2nd in the Mid Lancs with 25 points just two points behind the winners Kendal with 23. The U15 Boys did the same as the Girls, posting a team win in the Red Rose and led by a fine run from William Grundy in 1st place with team mates Tom Falencki in 4th, Theo Robinson in 6th, George Holman (8th), Elliot Unsworth  (10th) and Liam Bennison in 17th – and in the Mid Lancs the lads placed 1st again by just one point totaling 22 points to Southport’s 23.

The Harriers U17 Men’s team were in excellent form taking wins in both team events for the Mid Lancs and Red Rose. Sam Aspey led the 40 strong field home in 1st place with his team mates Jack Wood in 3rd, Ethan Cutler in 12th, Max Belshaw (14th) Henry Ward (16th), Loucas Lancashire (25th) and Owen Donnelly in his first cross country outing (40th) totaling 16 points in the Mid Lancs from Preston in 2nd (43 points) and finishing with 7 points in the Red Rose woth Rossendale in 2nd (34). Isabella Pacelli in 9th, Lottie Smith in 11th, Isabelle Perry in 14th, Lilly Green (15th) and Freya Neild (19th) brought the girls home to 3rd place in the Mid Lancs U17 Women’s Race.

It was a pleasing sight to Jess Warner-Judd line up in the Senior Women’s race after a period out with her health. 31 Clubs featured in the race resulting in Jess winning in a time of 19.37 alongside a fine run from Evie Taylor in 5th spot (22.32) and 1st U20 Woman, V50 Joanne Nelson who has also been out and only just coming back to racing in 10th place (24.18) and 1st V50, Rebecca Ward in 15th place (25.06) and gets better and better – also 1st V40 and V50 Sarah Krige in 43rd spot ( 27.30). Finishing 1st with 16 points as Preston placed 2n (27), this became a double team win as they also won the Red Rose with 24 points from Bury in 2nd (29).

Although Blackburn Harriers finished 1st, 4th and 5th in the Senior Men’s race, the team had to settle for 2nd place behind Rossendale in both the Mid Lancs and Red Rose due to Rossndale packing their next three athletes better than Blackburn. With the Senior Men having three Saucers to run as well as three times across the stream crossing in the reserve field, the front of the race became a race between Blackburn Harriers trio – Matt Ramsden, Rob Warner-Judd, Ross Harrison, Rossendale’s Grant Cunliffe and Clayton’s Biruk Kebede. On the last lap it became a battle between three – Grant Cunliffe leading with Matt Ramsden and Biruk Kebede in 2nd and third. Coming out of the reserve for the final time and heading to the finish, Ramsden and Kebede moved awaty from Cunliffe and it was Ramsden who prevailed with a huge kick some 400m from home that saw him take the win in 34.04 from Kebede in 2nd 34.14 and Cunliffe in 3rd 34.42. Cracking race to watch as Rob Warner-Judd finished in 4th (35.10) and Ross Harrison 5th (35.25). Next home for the Harriers came Ben Makin in 12th (38.33), Paul Bradshaw 19th (38.43), Chris Davies 21st (39.44) and 1st V45, U20 Jack Lamb 22nd (40.05), Stephen Hall 25th ( 40.12) and 2nd V45, Josh Holgate 28th (40.29), Marc Hartley 30th (40.49), Nick Gaskell 32nd (41.32) and 2nd V50), U20 Codie Dewhurst 38th (42.20), Danny Maynard ( 40th (42.31), U20 Umair Rafiq 44th (43.22), V55 David Almond (44.24), U20 Jack Paget-Fowler 70th (46.25), V50 Anton Krige (47.29), V55 Gary Pearse 131st (51.56) and V50 Allan Hartley 137th (52.38).

V55 Mark Almond was out the day after in the Manchester Half -Marathon. Mark rana good race to post a time of 1hr 27.53 and was 9th V55 in the race as well as being 832nd overall out of a field of well over 18000 runners. (RESULTS)

The previous week saw Theo Robinson representing Clitheroe Royal Grammar School in the English Schools fell running Championships held at Giggleswick -Theo was in the yr 10 & 11 race described as a tough varied 5.5km route with a 247 metre ascent including boulders, bogs, woodland and streams to name a few. The year 10/11 race saw males and females run together with 69 of them being male. Theo placed 35th with a time of 29.44. (RESULTS)

 

Also out last week and keeping it quite was the redoutable Katie Buckingham, she of RunThrough fame at the Chester Marathon. Katie had run the Chester Half-Marathon back in May, running 1hr 39.23, but this time she was taking on the metric Marathon – some 26.2k – with nearly 600 runners taking the distance on. Katie came 18th overall in the Women’s race out of 596 in which she ran well for a time of.2hr 07.40.

(RESULTS)