HORWICH RMI Harriers took 29 runners to Sherdley Park in St Helens for the 4th round of the Manchester Area Cross Country League and came away happy with the results especially as the men only had seven runners turning out, writes David Barnes.

But the top six valiantly did the job, finishing third behind Sale Manchester and Chorlton, so they have every chance still to take third place in the top division with just the final fixture to go at Heaton Park in March.

Luke Foley and Joe Mercer vied for Horwich’s top result and in the end Luke took fourth place overall, with Joe 13 seconds further back in fifth place. Nick Leigh, Simon Bruton, Julian Goudge and Jonathan Bruton completed the team.

Nick Leigh also took second place in the M45 category and Julian Goudge took 1st place in the M50 category and they occupy those places in the series too. With the one race to go, Joe Mercer is second in the men’s senior series and Luke Foley is fifth.

The ladies had a great day at Sherdley too as Lindsey Brindle took 26th place and was well backed up by Janet Rashleigh, Milly Lever and Hayley Winder so that the team took 10th place of 42 teams.

The scoring team were kept keen by Helen Macdonald two seconds behind Hayley and Alison Mort within a minute further back. They are now certain of promotion from division 3 and the vet ladies’ team were third of 46 teams, a tremendous effort.

The Manchester League is very competitive right down to the under-11s and the Horwich junior squad are taking it on for the first time this year so it is a steep learning curve for them. They all took it on with typical gusto and there were two team results for the Harriers. Grace Freary was 17th in the under-11 race and with Sarah Lawman and Anna Hart took 11th team place. Grace Mort was 14th and with Lois Bowl and Emma Lucey took 10th team place at under-15.

Steve Thomasson puts together a personal running challenge each year made up of classic European half marathons and this weekend it was Steve’s first stop for 2023 in the Italian city of Verona famed as the setting for Romeo and Juliet.

On a fast course he got a new personal best of 1:40:46 beating his previous best at Torshavn last year by over 90 seconds. Closer to home, Rob Jackson returned to one of his favourite locations at Aintree racecourse, the setting for Red Rum’s adventures and was also in good form as he ran the 10k in 38:21 for 14th overall in a field of nearly 1500 runners, his quickest time for 12 months.

And really close by on the West Pennine Moors, several Harriers were inspired to take on the Anglezarke Amble organised by the local branch of the Long Distance Walkers Association. These events are a great chance to meet up with friends with no pressure on achieving personal bests, so many return year after year.

Including Steve Pearson who has coached many of the club’s juniors on the fells and is fine evidence of the benefits of hip replacements 20 years after a double operation. Others also taking part included Isaline Kneale, Gordon Stone, Chris Gorton, Mary White, Marcus Taylor, Tony Varley and Suzanne Budgett.

At the England Indoor Athletics Championships in Sheffield, for Under-20/under-17 and under-15s, it was all about consolidating recent form as Sophie Walton won silver in the 200m and Joel Ige, having only just entered the youngest age category, narrowly missed out on final appearances in both the 60m and the 200m.

It was a tough ask for Joel to progress from the heats but the real aim was to gain experience at much bigger competitions and Joel ran very close to his PBs. Sophie knew it would be much harder than recent competition as her main under-20 rival Success Eduan of Sale Harriers was running this weekend.

In the final they were neck and neck coming off the bend for the final 30 metres with Sophie pipped at the line by a metre. As coach Trevor Williams said: “You can’t win every race and there are much bigger competitions to come throughout the season.”