By David Barnes

 

THE first fixture in the South East Lancs Cross Country League was a successful one for Horwich and, in particular, the Massey family.

On a very muddy course at Leigh Sports Village, Tom Massey won the under-13s boys' race and his brother Luke won the u17s race with a great final lap.

Their dad Paul then finished seventh overall, winning the veterans' over-45s category in the men’s race.

The first race of the afternoon saw Lydia Johnson start brightly and finish 16th with team-mate Skye Nicholson 33rd at u11s.

In the u13s boys' race, Luke Brindle claimed second behind Tom Massey with a superb finishing sprint. And with Matthew Mair finishing sixth the team award was never in doubt.

The u13s girls' race saw Amelia Bailey have her best run to date to place fourth with Milly Lever 30 seconds behind in eighth.

In the u15s race, Lewis Wilkes finished a superb fourth, only 13 seconds behind the winner.

In the senior men’s race, newcomer Dave Purnell ran well for 47th in 42mins 31secs for 60th place.

Tony Hesketh won the V65 category in 44:22, John Parker was first V70 home in 50:56 and Dave Barnes completed the RMI field in 80th clocking 46:02.

With 16 RMI runners in six parkrun events on Saturday, the highlight was Cian Healey’s run which gave him an all-time fourth place in the JM10 age category at Bolton.

Mary White put in a strong performance as she was first home in the V65-69 category in 26:43.

At the Preston 10-mile road race in wet and blustery conditions on Sunday, Maria Lowe finished 110th overall in 1:09:16 – third in the FV35 category – and Sean McMyler was 69th overall and 11th in a competitive MV50 category in 1:06:21.

Horwich’s trio was made up by Christine Boardman who finished 270th out of 416 runners in 1:25:26.

Six hardy Horwich runners also took on the testing Tour of Pendle fell race on the same day with Andy Ford leading them home in 81st place out of nearly 500 runners.