Mike Cooke’s up tasty finish
MORE than forty brave souls prevailed over the eating and drinking of the festive period and toed the line outside the Star and Garter public house on Hillgate for the annual ritual of the three-mile dash along St Mary’s way and back via Waterloo road on Boxing Day.
It proved a hard fought race, especially towards the front of the field with fine weather but a chilly wind to go with it.
Local runner Mike Cooke took the honours in the men’s race to finish in 15 minutes and 29 seconds to second placed Grant Anderson of Stockport in 16:04 with the bronze medal going to George Cook, also from Stockport, who stopped the clock in 16:35. In the ladies’ race, junior lady Ruth Sinclair came back to the fore after recent layoffs through injury to record a winning time of 17:37.
Second ladies place went to guest runner Zoe Gmerek of Sale Harriers in 18:41, running her last event in the aforementioned club’s colours before the transfer to Chorlton Runners from the start of the new year. In third place and making it a family affair was Lesley Sinclair, mother of winner Ruth, with a finishing time of 20:29.
Stockport’s Nick Roberts must be congratulated on pulling the event together quickly and efficiently following on from the closure of the old event headquarters at the Waterloo hotel. He worked his magic and was ably assisted by fairy godmother aka Hilary West, who completed the course in a supervet time of 24 minutes exactly.
The charity for whom she works will benefit from the proceeds after expenditure being the worthwhile Beechwood Cancer Care centre situated at Chelford Grove, Adswood.
To conclude the day’s proceedings, the three lucky Harriers’ club recipients for guaranteed entry into next April’s London Marathon were drawn from the hat and were Simon Hayes, Rebecca Brimage and Sarah Wood with first reserve being Ben Snell. These and others will have to up their game from an easy three miles to 26+ miles of the hard stuff over the coming three months but will be sure to do their best as individuals and for the local club as a whole.
The 2016 Stockport Harriers race series has now concluded. It saw 64 athletes pursue their best eight cumulative event positions from no less than 24 events, ranging from short fell races through to half marathons and over a time frame of eight months from late February to early November, with several divisions covering both male and female competitiors and in various age group categories.
Paul Brooks was division 1 champion with Jill Tavini winning the equivalent ladies event.
In the men’s division 2, local lad Ian Mulligan, now living in North Wales, made the regular journeys to the Stockport area and obtained the perfect score of 800 points and in the other divisions there were also wins for Barry Chadwick and another perfect score of 800 for Rebecca Brimage to conclude the proceedings in division 5.
It’s hats off all round to the event administrator Tony Park who organised the complete annual series and athletes will be itching to start the whole process again in two months time for 2017 and he will be hoping to exceed the numbers over and above the 64 entrants who have recently completed the series in 2016 and prospective runners are asked to scan the Harriers’ club website and Facebook page for further details in due course.
The county cross country championships will be taking place this coming Saturday at 11am with events from the under 13s age group right through to senior level from the newly opened Woodbank Stadium clubhouse.
Meanwhile, 200 miles to the North and also on Saturday, Harriers’ Olympian Ross Millington will be keeping illustrious company in the Great Edinburgh cross country races along with Mo Farah and many other international athletes.
The event is televised on the BBC from 1:15 p.m. onwards from Holyrood park and Arthur’s seat and in addition to the 8 kilometre race for men there will be the ladies event of 6 kilometres and the exciting 4 x 1 kilometre relays in between the main events comprising 4 person teams (2 men and 2 women) with quartets from Great Britain, Europe and the USA competing for the Stewart cup, an event not to be missed in the athletic calendar.