HARRIERS' senior and junior teams took on tough tests last weekend in the shape of the Hodgson Brothers Mountain Relay race and the English Road Running Association relays.

At Patterdale in the Lake District, the senior men finished 26th out of 70 teams in the Mountain Relay which has more than 8,000 feet of ascent and a total distance of 24.9 miles over challenging terrain.

The route requires careful navigation and tests endurance and teamwork as the eight runners from each club run in pairs.

Simon Pymm and Alex Fowler had the best leg finish of 15th place.

For the juniors, it was the annual visit to Sutton Park in Birmingham where the wide parkland paths provide a good venue for running.

The under-15s girls fielded two teams and both had good results.

The A team of Georgia Heath, Lucy Dixon and Eva Baldwin finished 10th out of 61 teams, while the B team were close on their heels in 21st.

The u15 boys’ team of Toby Middleton, Matthew Flatters and Lucas Milliken also had a great result in 11th place out of 68 teams.

For a relatively small club, the youngsters are definitely punching above their weight at u15s and it is also a tribute to the juniors’ coaching with steady development through the age categories.

The u13 boys were 33rd out of 66 teams and the u13 girls were 39th out of 47 teams.

Three of the juniors from Sutton Park went on to Haworth on Sunday for the scenic Withins Skyline fell races.

Toby Middleton was second u15 boy in a time of 5mins 59secs and Ethan Isaacs third u13 boy in 6:53.

Jack Barrago also turned in a commendable result for the second day running, while Aiden McKenna, Charlotte Vickers and Imogen Wrigley completed the turnout at Withins.

Locally it was the popular Rivington Trail half marathon where Layne Mercer was the Harriers’ top runner and he took the M50 prize.

Tony Hesketh is having a fine season and picked up another M70 honour and there was a second prize in the M70 category for Tony Varley, who is showing a great return to form this year. Linda Webb was the third F55.

Other vets doing well last week included Richard Howarth, who was 17th and second M40 at the Chester Marathon in a field of more than 2,700 finishers.

At the Ashton-under-Lyne athletics stadium, Rob Jackson picked up a bronze medal in the Northern Masters 10,000m at V50 – the latest of several for him.

At Haigh Woodland parkrun, Mary White who is the national age-group champion in the quadrathlon, runs in the V65 category and had a fine 83.81-per-cent result.

In parkrun last week, her result was beaten only by the u20 Sam Wardle who went to the fast course at Long Eaton, near Nottingham.

There, in a time of 15:40 for an 84.15-per-cent grading, he finished fourth as the event appears to have been targeted by several fast runners in his age group.

Maria Lowe was third female at Heaton Park and Suzanne Budgett was second female at Sale Water Park.

Matthew Mair was third at Bolton with a new personal-best time of 19:34.

At Queens Park junior parkrun, Marty Arnot-Smith was third.

Horwich RMI Harriers results: Chester marathon – 17th Richard Howarth 2:36:14, 1,557th Liana Lonsdale 4:01:15, 1,853rd David Crawford 4:18:37, 2,477th Lawrence Pinnell 4:58:48;

Rivington Trail half marathon – 17th Layne Mercer 1:39:32, 29th Simon Vaughan 1:45:43, 57th Paul Wilcockson 1:55:18, 63rd Tony Hesketh 1:56:53, 106th Tony Varley 2:09:36, 120th Michael Salmon 2:14:36, 121st Linda Webb 2:14:36;

Rochdale 10k road race – 51st Mark Kmiec 44:31, 299th Angela Kmiec 1:01:58;

Withins Skyline fell race – 215th Jason Middleton;

Northern Masters 10,000m track race – 4th Rob Jackson 37:38;

Hodgson Brothers Mountain Relay – 1st leg Dan Gilbert/Michael Chadderton 40:35, 2nd leg Nick Leigh/Gareth Booth 1:15:27, 3rd leg Simon Pymm/Alex Fowler 57:42, 4th leg Andy Ford/Andy Lloyd 1:39:13;

Kirkby Safari 10 miler – 94th Geoff Leech 1:16:29.