Young Harriers leap to the top
IN a great start to the indoor season, Stockport Harriers Holly Aitchison and Grace Goodwill jumped right to the top of the UK Rankings for the under 17 Women’s Triple Jump.
During the first fixture of the North of England Indoor Open at the English Institute of Sport, Sheffield, and in her first competition since moving up from the under 15 age category, Holly jumped a massive lifetime best of 11.23 metres to go top of the UK Rankings with a personal improvement of over 70 centimetres.
In the same age category, team-mate Grace’s superb personal best jump of 10.88 metres placed her second in the UK Rankings.
Competitors in the under 17, under 20 and senior age categories were seeded together as one competition as were the competitors in the under 13 and under 15 age groups. In the Ladies’ event Holly Benson’s throw of 12.23 metres in the shot put was enough to make her the highest placed under 17 athlete ahead of team mate Abigail Pawlett (11.02 metres) and Steph Driscoll who threw a personal best of 10.85 metres. There was a huge improvement for Mia Lowndes too whose 8.90 metre throw was 76 centimetres further than her previous best.
There were 23 heats in the senior 150 metre competition with a total of 121 athletes taking part in this relatively infrequently raced distance which resulted in a whirlwind of personal bests.
Amongst them were Emilio Ramirez who raced to a personal best of 17.44s with his third place result in the third heat and Harry Williams who won his heat convincingly and in doing so set a personal best of 17.75s.
Schools International under 16 Pentathlon Champion Abigail Pawlett won her 150 metre heat in 18.68s ahead of teammate Katie Waterworth (u20) in 18.81s with Mia Lowndes (u17) in 4th with 19.49s, each setting life time bests for the distance.
Under 15 Amy Battle had an excellent day achieving personal bests in the 600 metres where she was the third fastest girl (1m:48.58s) and also in the 60 metres (8.46s) where she finished 7th, her 10.48 metre shot put was good enough for second place but fell short of the massive PB she set a fortnight ago at the same venue.
In the 60 metre sprint Jack Doodson equalled his fastest time this year of 8.56s and Rosie Lasseter was just five hundredths of a second off the personal best she set at SportCity last month. Jack also threw a very respectable 5.77 metres in the shot put setting a new personal best with the heavier 4 kilogram shot.
The under 15 girls used a 3 kilogram shot and both Anya Dunne and Rebecca Cox achieved personal best throws of 5.29 metres and 4.93 metres respectively.
The Stockport Harriers’ Race Series drew to a close this month, this was a points based series organised by Tony Park that started with the Stockport Trail Half Marathon in February and for which participants were divided into four divisions with those completing at least seven of the twenty four nominated races getting their names on the coveted 2017 Race Series mug.
The first back in each division got 100 points, the next 99 and so on with a person’s best eight results counting towards the end of season standings.
The penultimate race in the Series was the Lyme Park 10km which had been postponed from earlier in the season so on a cold, wet, Sunday morning thirteen Harriers turned up to take part in this free event which is run on the last Sunday of every month in Lyme Park.
After gentle start through some lovely Cheshire countryside, the route started to climb up to the cage and was at times both rough and slippery underfoot.
The ‘Langley 7’ was the final race in the Series and nineteen Harriers joined the field of over 286 runners in the beautiful Macclesfield Forest to jostle for the final Series standings over this tough seven mile run.
The route is very challenging with an undulating first couple of miles followed by a long steep ascent such that even though the final couple of miles are relatively flat or downhill it is a very demanding run.
The Series wins went to a James Corden in Division 1 followed by Iain Murdoch and Phil Burns; James was also crowned overall Men’s Champion for the third time with the maximum 800 points; Division 2 was won by Andy Melvin who had an excellent season with numerous personal bests followed by Ian Mulligan and Lesley Sinclair in third.
Division 3 was dominated by Rachael Blight, ahead of David Mellor and Tony Park, Rachel gained the maximum 800 points for 8 divisional race wins to win the Ladies’ Series too; Rebecca Brimmage edged Division 4 with Pete Sinclair a close second and Fiona Cooke in third.
The Winter Series organised by Alexis Dinsmor is now underway with four of the seventeen nominated races completed.
Over the border in Conwy, club runners had the opportunity to compete in the Three Nations Championship which took place at the Conwy Half Marathon; runners from outside the home nations of Wales, England or Scotland could participate in this battle of the average time by sporting a ‘Rest of the World’ team vest. From the start on the quayside under the historic Conwy Castle the four participating Stockport Harriers were treated to a spectacular route which took in views of the Isle of Anglesey, Puffin Island and the North Wales coastline along its 21.2 kilometre length, and all produced excellent results.
Gary Milligan was the first Harrier back, in eighth place overall and the second finisher in the 45-49 age category in a new personal best time of 1h:17m:52s, just a minute behind him in eleventh was Paul Brooks who was third in the 40-44 category arriving in 1h:18m:56s. Nathan Mayoh ran an great race to finish in 1h:31m:24s and in an inspiring first race over the half marathon distance Bradley Freeman finished the course in 1h:36m:04s in 7th position in the mens’ under 20 age category.
There was a treat in store for Stockport Harriers from the under thirteen age category and above when they got the opportunity to ‘Train with Champions’ this week.
In a special training session led by coaches David Turnbull and Steve Vernon at Woodbank Stadium members had the opportunity to train with some of the Club’s most successful athletes – including former European under 23 Cross Country Champion Jess Coulson (Piasecki) and Rio 10,000 metre Olympian Ross Millington.
Athletes were split into age groups for a warm up run and a drills masterclass led by Steve and Ross before the age groups came together for a mixture of hill repetitions and one and two mile road circuits supported by Stockport Harrier’s Endurance Coaches.
A group cool down and debrief Question and Answer session completed a truly memorable morning.
Next week sees the third fixture of the Manchester Area Cross Country League taking part in Kenworthy Woods on Saturday 2nd December for age groups from under 11s to seniors and veterans and the second fixture of the Northern Indoor Open at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield as well as the Hoka Stockport 10 mile road race for those who fancy something a little longer.