Harriers at Herrington Park

The decs are down, the scales slightly heavier, what better way to start the year as you mean to go on…with a good old fashioned, mud infested, obstacle strewn x-country.

Herrington had all you could ask for – mud in bucket loads, streams to leap across, hills a plenty, branches to duck…

We had a great turn out and attitude, with absolutely everyone’s efforts counting for the team.

Fantastic performances from our under 11 boys Luke Pichler and Alex Walker and under 11 girls Hannah Walker (Alex’s sister).

Matty Summers finished 40th in the under 15s boys fast group in an excellent time of 15.40. Star performance goes to Elena Walker who finished fourth in the under 15 girls category in a time of 17.21. Well done Elena.

Erin Prior finished 20th from the fast pack in 19.07 (under 17 and under 20 women), fully cementing her inclusion representing the North East in the inter-counties x-country next month.

With Morpeth, Gosforth, Heaton and Crook all putting out excellent teams it was always going to be an uphill battle for the women. But our green and gold jewels gave it their all. The four counters for the senior women’s team were Emily James, Leanne Lewis, Becki Newman (took points off Sunderland) and Kayleigh Dunn. Elaine Ashton, Julie Williams, Nina Wilkinson, Laura Murphy and Marion Dreono-Thwaite kept three of the clubs from scoring highly.

The men played a blinder with Tim Nicholson, Harry Coates, Kris Stobbs, Joe Collins, Dan Weatherill and Sean McIntyre our six counters. Their race meant that we are now equal first in division two with Birtley with two races to go. Kevin Wilson, Dave Diston (making his x-country debut) and John Young kept Birtley’s sixth counter from beating Alnwick. So you see, everyone does play a vital part in proceedings.

In terms of the Harrier League individual grand prix Matty is 26th out of 87; Elena is 20th out of 77; Erin is 7th out of 79; Becki is 5th out of 233, Simon L is 11th (out of a lot) and Dan W is 10th vet.

Here are the full results of Saturday’s race. And this was one of the Winter Grand Prix races so click here to see the results so far, including the New Year’s Day results. It’s still all to play for.

See all the photos on our gallery page.

See you at Thornley (2) on February 11th! If you haven’t entered yet and would like to run then speak to Simon L. And don’t forget Durham Relays on Sunday (15th Jan). If you’re too late to enter then come along and give us a cheer.

Emily