Young Harriers step up to plate
APLETHORA of personal bests were achieved at the Birmingham Games which followed on from the Muller International Indoor Grand Prix the previous day at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham and this was spearheaded by Stockport’s Katie Waterworth.
She took the under 17s 200 metres title in a scintillating time and personal best of 25:78 to dip under the 26-second barrier for the first time ever. She also posted personal bests in the 60 metres sprint (second in 5:47) and then went on to win the long jump discipline in a massive leap of 5.47 metres.
Emma Wood-Doyle went in the under 15s high jump in spite of still being in the under 13s age bracket and recorded a lifetime best of 1.27 metres. In the same discipline, Rebecca Roach succeeded at the same height too, to also record a PB.
Personal bests were also recorded by Sanna McLean (under 17s 200 metres) and Abi Pawlett in the under 15s 200 metres.
Laura Hickey, who has been kept out of competition through injury, won the under 17s hurdles sprint in a useful time on 9:20. Several of these athletes will have used the meeting as competition for the forthcoming national championships.
Over to the roads and former Stockport marathon winner and a senior endurance coach at Stockport Harriers Dave Turnbull, who works for local brewer Frederick Robinson, knows how to keep churning out the winners at a high level. There’s hardly ever any small beer when it comes to race results as far as the competitors from his coaching enterprises are concerned.
The latest winner turned out to be Stockport’s Patrick Martin who completed the Wrexham Village Bakery half marathon in an impressive time of just shy of one hour and eight minutes for the 13+ mile circuit.
Martin is a glutton for punishment in that he is currently training for the Manchester marathon in April so decided to undertake a private extra five miles of race training prior to toeing the line in Wrexham to get his distance up to 18 miles.
Jack Martin, his brother, continues to inspire with road race win, colleague Jack Morris took all five individual titles in the recent Manchester area cross country league series and Jack Nixon is also helping substantially in making up the group from Stockport with a useful third spot also in the Manchester league recently at Woodbank Park, so there’s no stopping the momentum of the winning streaks at the moment from the Stockport stable.
At university level, Stockport continues to be represented in the annual British universities cross country championships with good performances by two Stockport athletes in the senior women’s race with fell running specialist Elizabeth Apsley representing Cambridge University finishing in 18th position (27:29) and Mollie Williams in 36th spot (28:16) for Leeds Beckett university for the none too easy 7.38 kilometre course around Graves Park, Sheffield.
Any junior Stockport athletes who have finished in a championship medal position during the 2016 season covering all disciplines should make themselves known as soon as possible to coach Peter Torrance if they wish to participate in the Harriers’ subvention and awards scheme. Regrettably it has not been possible to arrange an awards ceremony during this winter season owing to the tremendous amount of work needed to complete the new buildings complex at Woodbank Stadium in a timely manner.
The penultimate Harriers’ sponsored primary schools cross country meeting will take place at Woodbank stadium this coming Saturday at 10.30am whilst over at the English institute of sport in Sheffield the English junior indoor athletic championships will be taking place for age groups from under 20 to under 15 on both days of the weekend.