Kirsty goes fourth for best ever finish
CLUB cross country captain Kirsty Longley was selected to represent England at this year’s British & Irish Masters Cross Country international held in Londonderry at the weekend.
Kirsty went off aggressively and led for the first half lap, but she was competing against a quality field.
She made a determined effort to catch the leaders in the final straight, but had to settle for 4th place, her best ever finish.
Ahead of her was Claire McCarthy (Ireland) who has represented her country at the world championships this year and Claire Martin (England), a 7 times winner of the event.
To finish only 10 seconds behind the winner and four seconds behind 3rd place was a tremendous achievement by Kirsty who finished the 6K course in a time of 22.47.
Her quality training with coach, Mark Bleasdale, is now paying dividends.
Kirsty collected an individual bronze in the veteran 40 age category and team gold for England. She can now look forward with optimism to the Cross Challenge event at Liverpool’s Sefton Park this weekend where Kirsty will be competing against the best runners in the country.
Formby HS U13 Boy’s team qualified for the regional round of the ESAA Cross Country cup which was held at the Sedbergh School in Kirby Lonsdale.
This was a demanding cross country course and not one for the faint hearted.
The event was keenly contested with schools from Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cumbria all competing for a place in the national finals this coming weekend in Kent.
Calday Grange (Wirral) looked favourites when their first two runners finished first and second, but they could only manage 4th place.
As it turned out it was the excellent ‘packing’ of Formby’s 3 LPS runners, Harry Wright (13), Oscar Davidson (14) and Gideon Lucas (15) which clinched victory by two points.
Coach, Karyn Hannaway, who trains the boys at the Edge Hill track, is delighted with the progress the boys have made and is now very much looking forward to the final.