In the Annual Sunderland XC Open & Relay Races at Farringdon, Sunderland, City Runners were champing at the bit to use these races as the platform for their XC Season, and across the board they did not disappoint.
The Junior Section runners got the Club off to a great start in their individual age group category races with Freya Gibson finishing 3rd in the u/11 Girls 1k Race, which was followed by Peter Cook 2nd in the u/13 Boys, Cameron Thomas 2nd in the u/15 Boys in his first race for the Club, Alfie Phillps 3rd, Ben Horsfield 2nd in the u/17, all running really well and getting amongst the medals, and over a distance of 1.8 miles. Full results of all the City Juniors were as follows; u/11 Girls (1k) Freya Gibson 3rd (4.10). u/13 Boys (1.8 miles) Peter Cook 2nd (10.28), Thomas Hambleton 15th (11.39). u/13 Girls Molly Cook 11th (13.00), Olivia Fawcett 18th (13.21). u/15 Boys Cameron Thomas 2nd (9.58), Alfie Phillips 3rd (10.03), Izaak Taylor 4th (10.03), Adam Ord 8th (10.26). u/15 Girls Rina Sebastiao- Yatsuzuka 8th (12.24), Laura Emily Hopper 20th (14.52). u/17 Men Ben Horsfield 2nd (9.30), Luke Pickering 4th ( 9.41), William Morgan- Rippon 7th (10.00), Ryan Watson 8th (10.01), Jacob Stephenson 12th (10.36).
In the Senior Men’s Relays (4 x 1.8miles), Dan Jenkin got the A Team off to a brilliant start coming back 1st in a time of 8.53, which was actually the fastest time of the day. Jonny Wilkinson managed to hold on to the lead returning 9.36, but young Joseph Grehan-Bradley (17) was eventually overtaken by hosts Sunderland Harriers, but still clear of Morpeth, returning a time of 10.11, Michael Grimes then tried to pull back the deficit on the final leg and had a very good run returning a time of 9.13 which was the 5th fastest time of the day. In the end Durham finished 2nd, in an overall time of 37.53, only 31 secs behind Sunderland and 69 secs ahead of Morpeth Harriers out of 21 completed Teams that finished. The City B Team also ran well finishing 10th overall in a time of 42.49 , with Liam Stubbington 13th (10.21), Chris Wilkinson 12th (10.33), David Hemming 13th (11.36), Jorge Benet 10th (10.19).
In the Veteran Mens Relay the City A Team ran very well but finished just outside the medals finishing 4th out of 20 teams in an overall time of 42.56, with Ian Crampton 3rd (10.25), Steve Everett 3rd (10.05) 5th fastest time, Paul Delaney 3rd (11.18), Rob Hand 4th (11.08). In the incomplete B Team the times were as follows: Peter Harrison 6th (10.50), Simon Pickering 8th (11.50) and Brian Brown 18th (15.35).
Veteran Kelly Bentley was only representative in the Senior Womens Race finishing 35th and recording a time 13.44 for the 1.8 mile course.