Iconic Sutton Park course tests Harriers
THE Rossendale Harriers road running squad made the journey down to Sutton Park, Birmingham to race in the English Road Running Association’s 12 stage relay Championships on Saturday and lined up with 64 other clubs that qualified for the race from the three areas, the North the Midlands and the South, plus others from Wales.
Sutton Park is an iconic venue as it’s been the home for many years for the championships in which the top runners in the country, many of them Olympians, have competed for their clubs.
The course is undulating and the strong winds made it difficult for the runners, especially on the longer legs.
Having qualified to run in the event at the Northern championships in Birkenhead a fortnight earlier when they finished in 17th position the Harriers were confident of acquitting themselves well and looked forward to the challenge.
The race consisted of six long legs of 5.38 miles and 6 short legs of 3.16 miles and Tonbridge AC won a closely contested victory over Highgate Harriers but having had three withdrawals from the team with illness and injury Rossendale were pleased to finish in 36th place.
Club captain Stephen Corbishley ran the hotly contested first leg over the undulating course and clocked 28mins 43secs, the Harriers’ quickest of the day for the long leg to finish in 50th place.
Ben Dade, on the short leg took over and dropped one place clocking 17mins 37secs before Andy Mellor gained nine places with 28mins 50secs.
Jon Cleaver would normally have run a long leg but having run his Paris Marathon six days previously opted for a short and showed his fine form and endurance by running 16mins 43secs to gain another four places
to cross the finish line in 38th place.
Further long legs by Andy Grenfell (30mins 47secs), Chris Clare (30mins 29secs), Rob Webb (29mins 39secs), Ben Kirkman (30mins 05secs) and short legs by Lawrence Fairclough (17mins 09secs), Joe Waller (17mins 57secs), Michael Corbishley (18mins 17secs), and Chris Snell (18mins 23secs) finally gave us an overall time of 4hrs 44mins 29secs and 38th place, a very creditable result.
There’s also good news for the Harriers’ fell squad as the Lancashire junior teams for the Inter Counties Championships at Kettlewell on May 15th have been announced and four of Rossendale’s youngsters, Joe Ormrod (17s), Ellie Richardson (U19s), Will Curry and Joe Hopley (U19s) have all been selected after their performances on Pendle.
Ben Kirkman has also gained a place to run for the senior squad at Llanberis on May 7th.