Northern road relay success for senior Harriers
ROSSENDALE’S senior men travelled over to Birkenhead Park on Sunday to take part in the Northern Athletics Road Relay Championships and it proved to be a successful trip as, by finishing in the top 25 A teams, they qualified for the national finals in Birmingham in April. It was also a worthwhile outing for Joe Ormrod who was there to compete in the U17 5K championships and in his first ever race at the distance he achieved an excellent personal best time of 16mins 02secs.
In the previous weekend Joe had represented Lancashire in the English Schools Cross Country Championship in Kent where he finished in 17th position and first Lancashire athlete so Sunday’s effort where he finished in 7th position and again the first runner from the county underlined his excellent form.
Several of the senior men’s team achieved personal bests in the recent Trafford 10K, so going into Sunday’s race they were confident of qualifying for the national finals and in the end, finishing in 17th place overall and 14th A team, they made it with ease.
Club Captain, Stephen Corbishley led off in bright sunshine on the first of the 12 legs with 49 other runners from all over the region and by the end of the long leg of 8K Stephen came home in 27th place with a time of 25mins 32secs before handing over to Matty Harris who gained six places and ran the team’s quickest short leg of 4K, finishing after 12mins 21secs.
From then on the Harriers were never out of the qualifying places with long leg clockings for Jon Cleaver, 25mins 50secs, Andy Mellor, the fastest of the team with 25mins 23secs and Rob Webb, not back to full fitness yet, with 27mins 0secs.
Ben Kirkman was next quickest of the short leg runners with an impressive 12mins 24secs for his 4K, Jonathan English clocked 13mins 08secs, Andy Grenfell, 12mins 40secs, Sean Greenwood, 13mins 24secs, Chris Snell, 13mins 38secs and Ben Dade and Chris Clare who made excellent debuts for the team finished with times of 12mins 47secs and 13mins 08secs respectively. Leeds City AC won with a combined time of 3hrs 04mins 41secs, over a minute clear of second placed Salford Harriers and Rossendale finished in a very respectable 3hrs 27mins 15secs.
The next big event on the calendar on Saturday 2nd April is the Pendle Fell race, which incorporates the Lancashire Championships for all age groups so should attract a
good turnout from the Harriers and after that the National Road Relays on Saturday 9th April.