Runcorn Bridge Road Race, Easter Sunday 31st March

Ten of the club's runners took part in the 14th Race the Bridge 5 mile road race.  Runcorn Bridge is closed and the runners race round on a point to point course finishing at Hale.   Jamie White (14th, 28:41) was first back for the club and first Junior.  Gemma Connolly (23th, 29:25) finished first Senior lady with Ian Costello (29th, 29:39) 6th M40 not far behind.
Sonya Greenhalgh (150th, 36:07) was 3rd V40 and Linda White (355th, 42:45) 4th V50.

Joanne Keogh (364th, 42:59) 8th V35 and Jane Ashcroft (376th, 43:15) 8th V45 both finished a creditable 8th in their categories, with Dorothy Fairhurst (448th, 45:51) next in winning her age group (1st V70).  Last pair for the club were
Karen Harrison (477th, 46:50) 13th V45  and Pauline Picton (643th, 55:52) 6th V55.

Results

Rivington Pike Fell Race, Easter Saturday 30th March

Track closed tonight due to Snow, Tuesday 26th March 2013

The track is closed due to snow tonight.
The Senior's Group, Helena's group and the Sportshall Group at 7pm are definitely still ON.

6.15pm Group is definitely OFF.
 

Wilmslow Half Marathon, Sunday 24th March 2013

The club turned out nine hardy athletes to brace the freezing cold windy conditions to compete in this popular race.
Many of these performances were excellent, especially given the conditions on the day..

First home for the club was Gemma Connolly finishing fifth Lady with a Season’s Best (SB) of 1:20.10.

Winning the race in our male vets was John Appleton finishing a cracking 3rd M60 in 1:32.17 followed by Maurice Collins, 28th M50 in 1:34.39.

Pam Appleton was our first female vet home, finishing 8th F55 in 1:59.23, with Linda White not far behind with a PB performance in 2:01.04.  Jane Ashcroft made a good debut for the half marathon with 2:03.42, followed by Dot Fairhurst in 2:10.41, just missing out on the top three in her age group. Karen Harrison, using this as training for the upcoming London Marathon, finished in 2:12.16 with Janice Lawson completing the turnout in 2:18.44.

Results

Recent Results and Information:

The Northern Road Relays due to be held at Blackpool on 23 March were cancelled at 8.a.m.on the day which gives club members time to prepare for the shorter road relays in September.

The previous week Phil Robinson recorded 8.48 and 8.69 for the 60m and set a pb 1.40.96 in the 600m. Taylor Caton-Hand easily beat the opposition with an early season 6.33 in the long jump.

A week earlier Mike Hughes set a trio of SB’s winning the Hammer (29.42) and taking second place in the Shot Putt (7.53) and Discus (20.08).

2013 Pentathlon - Postponed!!!

Unfortunately the track is under 6 inches of snow at the moment and the weather forecast for tonight means it's unlikely to melt much. With regret we will have to postpone tomorrows internal competition for another weekend.

Huge Thanks to all of the parents and club officials who had volunteered to help, it was our best response ever so take a bow: Andy and Karen Sharples, Dave Morley, Jane Makin, Sophie Cummins, Kay and Rachel Wilcock, Julia Hayes, Chris and Michael Causer, Ian Roberts, Colin Spark, Karen and Caitlin Young, Simon Neal, Helena, Rachel and Maria McGoldrick and Dave Morley's Sprints Group. Please continue to support these events, it is a huge help. 

Enjoy your lie in everyone and see you on Tuesday.

Parent's Taster Session

We are running a taster session on Sunday 28th April for parents that are interested in knowing more about the technical points that we coach the Junior Athletes.

It's a fun informal few hours looking at sprints, hurdles, middle distance, javelin, shot and long jump.
For more information and to register please read the flyer here linked here.

Liverpool Half Marathon, Liverpool 17th March.

Haigh Hall Relays, Wigan

Four members of the Club made the short trip to Wigan for the Haigh Hall Relays. Set entirely within the grounds of Haigh Hall Country Park and a multi terrain event the first part of the course is a fast downhill section followed by an energy sapping return back up. Conditions on the day were wet and muddy. Andrew O'Connor ran the first leg in 25:34, with Cherryl Orrick next up in 32:13, Ian White posted 26:41 despite going off course and Sonya Greenalgh ran the anchor leg in 29:31. A good team effort was rewarded with the quartet finishing a pleasing 4th out of 8 mixed teams and 12th team overall out of the 18 teams  who finished.

Recent results:

Last weekend several athletes represented Merseyside at the Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships in Birmingham.  Katie Bowers-Folan closed in for the county securing tenth place for Merseyside.

Joe Ford also anchored Merseyside home, just a week after winning the Independent Schools’ Association U14 cross country championship at Rugby.

Susan Shirling finished ahead of eighty-eight other athletes in the U13 girls’ race.

Gemma Connolly ran for Cheshire in the Senior Womens race, finishing in the counting squad.

On the roads, Ian Costello was  ninth in the Delamere Park Run recording 19.32. The previous week Ian finished 29^th in 20.37 over the same course while Andy O’Connor was 19^th in the South Manchester event in a time of 19.33.

 Dash Quadrathlon

IMPORTANT FIXTURES NEWS: - Entries for the Dash Quadrathlon are now open and
WILL fill up fast. This is one of the best Open Comps of the year for young athletes. Great venue, great officials and loads of fun. Also open to U9's! Don't be disappointed, get in now!!!

Ant will be there to help you on the day.  Quadrathlon site

Here are the pictures from last year: -  Facebook Link
 

Celtic Cup, Cardiff : Sunday 10th March

Trafford 10K, Partington : Sunday 10th March

Andrew O'Connor raced the Trafford 10k at Partington Manchester, running 39:59. This well established race attracts a good field, in which Andrew finished a creditable 12th MV50, 230th overall.

GPW Recruitment St Helens 10KM Race : Sunday 10th March

Fifteen  seniors contested the St Helens 10k on a testing course with weather to match.
Pick of the bunch were Dot Fairhust, Rosie OHagan and Luke Towers who came 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively in their age categories.

Luke Towers (3, 36:50) 3rd in category
Barry Graney (11, 37:56) 4th in category
John Greenall (16, 38:47) 7th in category
Dennis Wharton (67, 42:51) 4th in category
Carl Unsworth (311, 49:34) 176th in category
Tami Garvey-jones (329, 49:58) 5th in category
Cherryl Orrick (349, 50:33) 7th in category
Rosie Ohagan (464, 53:19) 2nd in category
Joanne Keogh (543, 54:44) 45th in category
Jane Ashcroft (647, 56:37) 17th in category
Karen Harrison (684, 57:30) 22nd in category
Dorothy Fairhurst (815, 1:00:33) 1st in category
Karen Mawdsley (834, 1:01:03) 38th in category
Sarah Odonoghue (904, 1:03:13) 47th in category
Karen Young (1024, 1:07:49) 63rd in category

Results

GPW Recruitment St Helens 2KM Race : Sunday 10th March

On Sunday 10th March the club helped to organise the 2km Juniors Race which
preceded the 10K adult event. Many thanks to Colin Spark, Chris Dempsey, Pam
Appleton, John Irwin, Janet Irwin, Helena, Rachel and Maria McGoldrick, Mike
and Joseph Woods and Kay Wilcock for their help with the registration desk
and race officiating.

The event went extremely well with 154 Juniors taking part and a superb
contingent of 30 athletes from the club including many first time
competitors and siblings. TEN of our runners finished in the Top 20 and FIVE
of the SIX prizes were won by our athletes. Many congratulations and well
done to Joe Houghton, Kieran O'Donaghue, Elizabeth Griffiths, Lauren Park
and Bethany Haughey for winning trophies. As you can see from the times
below, several others came very close to a top 3 finish too.

The full list of Club Runners, places and times:

1    7.39  Joe Houghton            
2    7.54  Kieran O'donoghue
7    8.51  Charlie Roberts
9    9.17  Elizabeth Griffiths
10  9.19  Jack Woolland
11  9.22  Joseph Matthews
13  9.31  Michael Brussels
14  9.34  James Nuttall
16  9.45  Lauren Park
20  9.53  Bethany Haughey
21 10.03   Natalie Tait
23 10.11   Jack Robinson
24 10.131 Xander Storey
26 10.18   Lucy Price
29 10.32   Amber Escoffery
32 10.46   Emma Farrugia
33 10.52   Hollie Brussels
36 10.57   Kaitlin Naylor
39 11.01   Dylan O'brien
43 11.14   Nelly Coaley
44 11.18   Amelie Burgess
46 11.23   Nathan Okeeffe
50 11.36   Elizabeth Greenall
51 11.38   Celine Virton
55 12.01   TBC
56 12.02   Isabelle Gent
58 12.13   Lucy Strettle
61 12.29   Ellie Brown
62 12.37   Luka Ashcroft
71 13.36   Emily Woods

Results

NW Sportshall League Finals

Thanks to some great performances in this year's League matches we qualified 4 teams for this year's League Finals which were held on Sunday 3rd March at Kingsway Widnes.

All of the athletes did exceptionally well up against much bigger teams from across the region and secured 12 individual medals as well as a 2nd place in the Under 13 Girls Category.

In the morning, Jordan Benson, Charlie Roberts, Jack Woolland, Michael Brussels, Jake Atherton, Nathan Rawlinson, William Connolly and Lewis Danher came 4th in the Under 11 Boys Category. No individual medals were awarded at U11 level however, Jake came 3rd in Speed Bounce and Jordan came joint 1st in vertical jump.

In the afternoon, Chris Lamb, Joseph Woods, David Barrow and Daniel Dobson also came 4th in the U13 Boys category despite not having enough team members to compete in every discipline. Chris won a Gold Medal for Vertical Jump (55) and a Bronze in Triple Jump (6.28m) and was the 2nd highest scoring athlete on the day. Daniel won a Silver Medal after a superb late surge in the 4 lap wasn't quite enough for gold. He was just held on the line by the winner by no more than the thickness of his shirt and had the same official time. Despite being asked to compete in 2 of his least favourite events (4 lap & 6 lap) Joseph Woods was the 3rd highest scoring athlete overall!.

Matthew Lamb was our only U15 boys competitor but his Silver in the 4lap, and bronze medals in the 2 lap and Triple Jump meant that he still finished ahead of another team in 4th position. For the second consecutive competition Matt was the highest scoring U15 boy on the day, fully justifying his selection to represent the NW Counties in the forthcoming National Championships.

The Under 13 Girls had a superb day and were JUST beaten into 2nd place by Crewe & Nantwich by 7.5 points, 162 to 169.5. They also won 7 individual medals, Erin Makin and Mia Langton competed in the 4 Lap Sprint for the first time and won Silver and Bronze respectively with great runs that should set them up nicely for the summer. Megan Lang won Speed Bounce Gold by two with a score of 79 from our own Zoe Pye and Silver with a jump of 6.42M in standing triple jump. These results saw her placed 2nd highest U13G overall for the competition. Emily Smith took home two silvers for Standing Long Jump (2.16) and Vertical Jump (45). Also racking up the points for the team were Natalie Tait, Hannah Seabrook, Lorna Glenn and Caitlin Young who did Shot but was unable to compete in any other events due to injury.

Every athlete that has competed for the club in sportshall this year should be really proud of what they achieved. The founder and chairman of sportshall George Bunner said that it was great to see the club doing well again and that we have some superb athletes coming through. Selection for the final squad was extremely tough and the successes above would not have been possible were it not for the efforts of every athlete that has represented us throughout the year. Thank you and well done to you all.
 

New Athletes

Please Note: We currently have a waiting list in place for new junior athletes.

Some of them will be allowed in over the next couple of weeks but the list remains in place. PLEASE don't bring friends down to training as we hate turning them away and it is embarrassing for all concerned. Younger brothers and sisters do not need to go on the list but friends do.

Thanks for your help.