In the North East Road Relay Championships held at Hetton Lyons Country Park , despite having to change Durham’s original Senior Men’s Team of 6 just before the start due to an injury they performed really well under the circumstances. It meant however that they had to draft in Stephen Everett (v/55) who is a top Veteran runner in the U.K. in his age category anyway from the Veteran’s Team to fill the void and this he did with a solid performance on the final leg. As it turned out the Men’s Team overall did very well over the 2.22 miles course finishing a very good 10th out of 59 finishing Teams in the Senior Men & Veteran Men v/40 Race recording an overall time of 72mins 59secs.

In the Senior Women & Veteran v/50 Race, the Women also did well finishing 35th out of 90 finishing Teams of 4 runners recording an overall time of 63mins 34secs.

Full results of all City Harriers were as follows:

Senior Men & Vet Men v/40;

L1 Alex Cooke 11.44, L2 Johnny Alexander 11.36, L3 Rob Everson 12.05, L4 Tom Rutherford 12.37, L5 Rory Woods 12.09, L6 Stephen Everett (v/55) 12.48.

Senior Women & Vet Men v/50;

L1 Catherine Gough 15.26, L2 Jenny Arthur 16.27, L3 Jessica Williams 14.30, L4 Lizzie Lupton 17.11.

Veteran Men v/50 ;

L1 Bob Hewitson 15.57, L2 Rob Hand 13.41, L3 Les Phillips 15.48 (Incomplete Team).

This years English National XC Championships took place at Woolaton Park, Nottingham, despite the course been saturated by Storms Clara and Storm Dennis it was inevitable the conditions would have a marked effect on performances during the course of the day, ideal for some, not so good for others. It was actually good in parts, deep water in others and really thick mud where many of the runners’ shoes were suctioned off if not secured, typical cross- country conditions you would have to say!

Results of the City runners were as follows:

U/15 Boys (4k) : Sam Terry 149th 19.25.

Senior Men (12k) : Alex Cook 225th 50.29, Chris Walker 562nd 55.36.

Senior Women (8k) : Amy Etherington 224th 42.29, Christine Woods (v/60) 671st 53.51.

City Harriers shine in Road Relays