Following closely on from Isaac Battye’s England representative honours last week, Horwich RMI Harriers are celebrating yet more international success this week from a triumvirate of the club’s members, writes David Barnes.

Ian Conroy has many representative honours for Ireland in European and World championships since 2009 and this week he took part in the World Mountain Running Championships at Calheta on the luxuriant island of Madeira.

Over the 9.2k course with 800m ascent, Ian won the silver medal in the M40 category just failing to chase down Eric Blake of USA but he had the great consolation of helping his team to the gold medal with Ireland team-mates Brian Furey and Kevin Looby ahead of Japan and Portugal.

In Ireland Ian runs for the Raheny Shamrock club and here in England he runs for Horwich, including in the club’s team for the Northern 6-stage road relays at Birkenhead next week.

The club congratulated Jeff Capps on completing the Tor des Géants race in the Italian mountains at the weekend. That’s 330km and 24,000m of elevation.

He battled for six days and nights to finish the race running through thunderstorms one night and some appalling weather throughout.

Gareth Webb ran his first race back after covid and finished 2nd M65 and 96th overall in the Humber Coastal Half Marathon - his time of 1hr 33mins 4secs guaranteed England Masters selection for the Great Manchester Run Half Marathon next year.

There was yet more vet success for the Harriers this week. In the Three Shires race, one of the classic Lakes races, two of the Harriers with a record of international success took on the 12-mile course.

Julian Goudge was 2nd M50 in 02:20:12 in 27th place with Danny Hope not far behind in 30th place in a return to the race scene after a season of niggling injuries. Neil Holding ran the Guilden Sutton 10k road race in West Cheshire and added another M60 category 1st prize to his record in 2023. In the Radcliffe 5k multi-terrain race, Marcus Taylor, a recent Bob Graham round completer, took the M50 1st prize in 10th place overall, with Gary Porteous and David Barnes also enjoying the trails around Philips Park. Mike Hampson who is not yet a vet, will also be in the squad for the relays next week and warmed up with a fine 35th place in 37:12 at the Altrincham 10k in a field of over 2100 runners.

In parkrun this week Suzanne Budgett was the club’s only winner as 1st first woman at the Nant y Pandy course on Anglesey which promises two short hills and plenty of flat terrain in the middle in which to recover and enjoy the scenery.

Jeanette Lewis was 2nd female at Wotton and Grace Freary was 3rd female at Peel where Rob Jackson recorded yet another 84%-plus age grading 1st place. Tony Hesketh was 1st M75 at the Nova Prestatyn parkrun. At Queens Park junior parkrun there was a 1-2-3 for Horwich with Harry Yates leading home Grace Freary and Louis Yates.