On the evening of Monday 16th September 2019, Morpeth Harriers held the second events in their 2019 series of Young Athletes Club Championships, sponsored again by Reeves the Pensions Specialists.
A total of ten athletes, 5 Boys and 5 Girls in the Under 11 age group, toed the start line of the 1.25 mile circuit of Lancaster Park, and Sam Davies in his very first attempt at the event, came home in fine style, to record an emphatic win in the Boys event, posting a time of 9m22s, which was five and one second faster respectively than the previous winners of the age group, Oliver Tomlinson and Sam Dent. Perhaps ironically, the last previous faster Under 11 Championship winner, was Sam’s older brother Ryan, who clocked 9m02s when winning in 2016. Sam won with 64 seconds to spare over the second overall finisher, who happened to be Iris Dungait (10m26s), also tackling the course for the first time, and was happy like Sam, to take the Gold Medal in the Girls Championship. Sixteen seconds behind Iris in the event was the second Boy finisher Toby Marr (10m42s), who won the Boys Silver Medal, who is the younger brother of Bertie Marr, who is an Under 15 Boy. Not far adrift of Toby, and as fourth overall finisher was Florence Crichton (10m46s), who was Girls Silver medallist. Fifth overall finisher, and Girls Bronze medallist was Florence’s twin sister Martha (12m06s), who just outsprinted sixth overall finisher Rosie Heaton (12m06s), who is the younger sister of Under 17 Woman Lily Heaton. Third place, and Bronze medal in the Boys Championship went to Irwin Wilby (12m21s), who was seventh overall finisher. Other Results were as follows: BOYS RACE Tom McLaughlin (4th) 13m55s, Alex Bilsborrow (5th) 15m18s. GIRLS RACE Charlotte Marshall (5th) 14m35s. Medals and winners’ trophies will be presented to the respective recipients at the clubs annual Presentation Evening, which is scheduled to be held at Bar Luga in Morpeth, on Sunday 24th November. Further details regarding this will follow soon. Missing out on a medal by the narrowest of 12 second margins, Morpeth Harriers’ Senior Men’s squad finished in the cruellest of fourth places at the Northern Athletics 6 Stage Relays at Sportcity, Manchester on Sunday 15th September 2019. This year’s strong competition over individual legs of 6.8 kilometres (4¼ miles) was won by Leeds City in a time of 2 hours 31 seconds with Sale Harriers in 2nd place (2:02:43) and Salford Harriers 3rd (2:02:59). For Morpeth, Sam Hancox finished in 13th place on the usual keenly contested first leg (20 minutes and 30 seconds) with Adam Pratt recording 21m 48s on leg 2. George Lowry moved the club up a whole ten places to 8th on leg 3 while recording the same time as Hancox. In his first Senior outing for the club, Rory Leonard (20m 36s) got the club up to 4th and Alex Brown (20m 20s) kept them there. However, despite a flying 19m 27s last leg from Carl Avery, the 3rd fastest overall of the day, the gap proved tantalisingly just too big to close for a bronze medal, the overall time being 2:03:11. The leading positions did not, in fact, change hands after leg 3. Fastest leg of the day was recorded by Philip Sesemann of Leeds (19m 18s) with Altrincham’s Mohammed Aburezeq clocking 19m 22s. Nevertheless, team manager David Swinburne pointed to the comparative youth and inexperience of the team, three of whom were competing at this level for the first time, and also singled out the solid performance of the club’s B team, who finished in a commendable 23rd place overall with a time of 2:12:41. A number of other leading athletes will hopefully also be available for the National, leaving selectors with some difficult choices. For the B team, Richard Johnson clocked 22m 6s to come home in 42nd place, Jake Masterman 22m 27s to move the team upto 40th and Dan Melling 22m 11s after which the team were in 36th. Phil Winkler recorded the team’s fastest leg of 21m 41s to move them into the top 30, and Mark Snowball kept the upward direction with 22m 15s for 25th place. Experienced Andy Lawrence (who deserves a medal for his chauffeuring services alone) got them up a further two places to 23rd with 22m 1s. This means the club will qualify two teams for the National 6 Stage Relays in a few weeks time. Interestingly, Salford’s B finished in an overall 5th and their C 21st! Leeds’ B were 10th and Sale’s 22nd, all clearly showing the strength of these clubs. Morpeth did have the satisfaction once again of finishing as leading North East team ahead of local outfits Tyne Bridge Harriers in 11th and Gateshead in 17th. Morpeth’s Under 15 boys also had a very creditable performance, finishing in 5th place in the earlier three man relay held over a distance of 3100m. Finishing in an overall time of 35m 30s, Joe Dixon clocked the club’s fastest time (11m 22s) with Bertie Marr recording 12m 00s on leg 2 and Ryan Davies 12m 14s on leg 3. Dixon’s time was the 8th fastest overall of the day.
The traditional curtain raiser for the cross-country season, the Ken Jefferson Memorial Open Cross Country races, were held at Farrington in Sunderland on Saturday 14th September 2019 and a successful afternoon for the club saw them win both Men’s and Women’s team competitions while also picking up a second place in the Men’s Veterans race. Once a Harrier League venue, the relay course largely follows the same route as used then, with the deep burn (more of a muddy slurry on Saturday, but thankfully shopping trolley free) the major obstacle. The club were always near the front of the field in the earlier Women’s race thanks to early legs by Michelle Thompson on leg 1, who clocked 11m 38s for the 1.8 mile course to come in 2nd, and Alison Brown (11m 53s) who, drafted in at late notice and not at all race fit, kept the team in contention in 4th. It was once again Rachelle Falloon who did the damage on the last leg, reeling in her rivals with apparent ease to win by a margin of several seconds, her leg of 10m 24s being the fastest women’s time of the afternoon ahead of Gosforth’s Helen Warburton. In the Senior Men’s and Veterans race, Ross Floyd came home in 2nd place by a narrow margin on leg 1 (9m 2s), but thereafter, once Jordan Scott had put the club comfortably ahead on leg 2 (9m 9s), it was very much a procession with young Dan Dixon, like Falloon, recording the fastest time of the day (8m 58s). Dan did manage, however, to fall for the curse of the burn, as the above photo shows, taking a tumble as he attempted to hurdle over it. Lewis Timmins, his triathlon season now largely over, completed the team’s efforts in 9m 20s. The Veteran team of Dave Nicholson (11m 14s), Jason Dawson (10m 52s), Lee Bennett (10m 7s) and Phil Walker (10m 45s) finished in a good second place in the same race behind Sunderland Harriers Veterans,
although Phil followed Dan into the burn thanks to an off-balance Jesmond Jogger who gave him a helping hand. There were remonstrations at the end. In the earlier, Junior races, Abi Leiper finished 3rd in 11m 4s in the U15 girls and James Tilley 14th (11m 34s) in the U15 boys. Morpeth Harriers opened their 2019 Young Athletes Club Championships programme, with the Under 13 athletes the first age group to test the 1.25mile circuit of Lancaster Park, on the evening of Monday 9th September 2019.
Reeves, The Pensions Specialists are again sponsoring the series, and Oliver Calvert and Keira Peck were the respective recipients of the Boys and Girls Gold Medals. Calvert got around the course in 8m17s, winning by the slender margin of two seconds from closest rival Oliver Tomlinson, who took the Silver medal, ahead of third placed Sam Dent (8m26s), who won Bronze. Tomlinson had won the Gold Medal in the Under 11 Boys event in 2018. Peck’s win in the Girls race had something extra special to it, however. She had previously won Gold in the Under 11 Girls Championships in both 2017 and 2018, and to take Gold again, in the Under 13 Girls Championships, also meant that she is partly on her way to emulating elder sister Holly, who won Gold at Under 11, Under 13, Under 15, and last year won Gold in her first year as an Under 17 Athlete. Keira meanwhile got around the circuit in 9m53s, to win comfortably from Olivia Bell (11m29s), with Libby Fife taking Bronze in 11m57s. A total of eleven athletes competed in the Under 13 Championships. Other results being as follows, BOYS Elliot Mavir (4th) 8m50s, Aaron Hayes (5th) 9m18s, Luke Robson (6th) 9m29s, and Ashton Glover (7th) 11m01s. GIRLS Tosin Obishai (4th) 14m45s. All medallists will receive their respective awards at a Presentation Night to be held on Sunday November 28th at Bar Luga in Morpeth. A 23-strong Morpeth Harriers contingent were among the 57,000 participants in the Simplyhealth Great North Run which was won for a sixth successive year by Sir Mo Farah on Sunday 8th September 2019. The half marathon took place in warm and still conditions beneath a near cloudless sky on the famous 13.1-mile route from Newcastle to South Shields. The weather ensured a terrific turnout of spectators along the course and plenty of support for those wearing the blue and white Morpeth vests. Morpeth’s first finisher was Andrew Hebden who secured a personal best GNR result of 1hr 19mins 12secs to finish 180th overall and 21st in the V40-44 category. His time was 24secs faster than his previous best on the course which he set back in 2014. Following him home was Adam Cooper (1.21.14) who finished in 244th place and 138th in the 20-34 age category. In third place for the club was Shaun Land who recorded an impressive time of 1.22.06 (284th place) on his half marathon debut. Morpeth’s first female finisher was Jennifer Belton in a time of 1.45.37, a position of 72nd female in the V40-44 category and 4,230th place overall. Mo Farah, 36, finished in 59 minutes seven seconds after racing ahead of Ethiopian Tamirat Tola in the final mile. Kenyan Brigid Kosgei, who won the London Marathon in April, set a new half marathon world best to take the women’s race in 1:04:28. David Weir won his eighth wheelchair title, with Jade Jones-Hall making it a British double in the women’s race. The full list of Morpeth Harriers finishers was:
Andrew Hebden (180) 01:19:12 Adam Cooper (244) 01:21:14 Shaun Land (284) 01:22:06 Tony Lewis (387) 01:24:10 Matthew Boyle (429) 01:24:51 David Swinburne (440) 01:25:05 Paul Banks (523) 01:26:14 James Johnson (684) 01:28:11 Kris White (695) 01:28:17 Paul Bell (857) 01:29:57 Eric Adams (1553) 01:35:05 Gary Mason (1597) 01:35:24 Paul Willis (1629) 01:35:39 Lewis Eke (2651) 01:40:01 Paul Bellingham (2750) 01:40:28 Jennifer Belton (4230) 01:45:37 Amy Thornton (4857) 01:47:27 Jilly Bell (5194) 01:48:21 Lesley Chapman (7697) 01:54:11 Simon Eaton (9799) 01:57:57 Jenny Glossop (13288) 02:04:23 Henrik Paulsen (15319) 02:08:03 Josephine Goodfellow (40513) 03:19:19 |
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