Created by : Tom Shaw On : Tue, 02/04/2025 - 15:14
Posted in :
February got off to a flyer as Saturday 1st saw the Nottinghamshire County Schools XC championship take place at Worksop College. Providing competition from year 5/6 starting at 1,500 m up to Sixth Form and 6,000 m, we had several junior harriers representing Bassetlaw Schools against the districts from around Nottinghamshire. With the auto-qualifying sports for the top-7 to represent Nottinghamshire at the English Schools final in Mid-March, there was plenty to race for at the sharp end.
In the first race of the day and 3,500 m for the Y8/9 Girls, Holly Bulmer and Heidi Marks were representing for both the Harriers and Bassetlaw as the finished 17th and 28th and a well packed field.
Next up was the 'sprint' of the day with a 1,500 m single lap in the Y5/6 races and in one of the biggest race of the day Aya St Juste ran excellent right from the gun to stay right up front finishing a fantstic 4th and the first Harrier of the day to qualify to represent Nottinghamshire at the English Schools. Not having to wait long for our next rep to be as Miley Townrow ran superbly in a two lap 3,500 m for the Y10/11 girls, holding a qualifying spot through the first lap before working hard in the second to moving through the field to an excellent 4th place finish. Joining Miley was Grace Walton finishing 21st to help the Bassetlaw team to the Y10/11 girls title
Next up we had Isaac Beresford in Y7 Boys with a single longer lapper of 2,000 m finishing a strong 15th in a packed fields and rounding out the boys in Y10/11 race with a challenging race Harry Cole was the final rep for the Harriers/Bassetlaw of the day.
Alongside the juniors putting in their best efforts, the competition also had an excellent presence as our senior members had a fantastic day, providing the marshalling team out on the course, encouraging the young runners, juggling the various courses for different age groups and making sure all the runners had to focus on was just their run! First in and last out but not one volunteer who didn’t have an excellent day out helping to provide valuable opportunities to compete for the next generation of runners!
Not leaving Saturday yet as it was full weekend of action for our multi-eventers indoors. On Saturday, at the Sheffield EIS open meeting, Charlotte Ayton continued her fine form in both the 60m hurdles and Long Jump, running another National qualifying time of 9.46s in the 60m hurdles , closely followed by Alicia Wells in 9.62s. Charlotte then jumped to a new Long Jump pb with a leap of 5.24m, closely followed again by Alicia with 5.11m.
These young ladies now look forward to competing in the U20W 60m hurdles at the National Championships in Sheffield next Sunday. Moving on to Sunday and Summer Johnson made the journey to the Sheffield EIS to compete in the Northern Championships, following a short break from competition as she achieved Shot Put (8th; 7.38m), Long Jump (20th; 4.17m) and 60m Hurdles (20th; 10.76s). Summer will now join Alicia and Charlotte next weekend at the National Championships, competing in the U15 Girls 60m hurdles. Elsewhere on Sunday, Freddie Marks made the trip to Loughborough to compete in the indoor open meeting. Freddie is hoping to be accepted for the National U17M Hepthathlon Championships in March and warmed up with High Jump - 1.73m (narrowly missing a new pb height of 1.78m), Long Jump (5.21m) and Shot Put (8.36m)
Back in to the mud on Sunday and it was time for the 2nd match of the Local XC series at Handsworth. A crisp and sunny morning, runners might have been fooled in to thinking this would be an unusually dry edition as they headed down in to Shirtcliff Woods for two undulating Laps. As always the course didn’t disappoint as runners dropped down in to the brook to find plenty of mud alongside the water before a steep climb up and along the top of the woods, up and around once more before skipping out of the woods and 1 km blast back up and away to Handsworth. Some really strong improvements saw our ladies move up to 3rd this week, as Hannah Miller made it 2 from 2 with another win. Nearly halving last matchs performance, Madi Spencer jumped up 12th, whilst two excellent performances by Julie Holloway and Sam Robinson saw them finish 20th and 21st. Camilla Mercer and Cathy Mhembere made strong improvements as they moved up to 25th and 29th with Tanja Maric this week jumping up in to scoring 7 in 31st. Nia, Arthur, Sally Staveley, Sharon James, Sue Wasnidge, Gemma Hind, Sarah Dickinson, Kerry Dickinson and Carolyn Luckham completed our ladies team of 15.
On the men’s side we continued our campaign to retain the men’s title as Tom Shaw also made it a Harriers win and 2 for 2 on the mens side, this time back up by Luke Davis improving for a Harriers 1-2 finish. Matt Daly ran another excellently paced run as he moved up to 5th followed by a glut of Harriers as Barnaby Gray, Henry Brady, Paul Marriott and Paul Parry finished 15, 17, 18 and 19 for a strong scoring 7. A total of 20 Harriers men representing the green and black meant we maximised on the points scoring for contribution and a really close battle saw the men narrowly finish 2nd by just 2 points to Clowne on the day. The series now stands at 1-1 which means its going to be interesting, competitive but as always in good fun as we head to Killamarsh in two weeks time.
Finishing out the weekend we had a few stragglers as Ian Monaghan and Sally Bulmer both ran two excellently paced and very respectable times out the up-and-out before down-and-back Dewsbury 10k as they ran 38:27 and 52:09 whilst at Sarah Bell had more mud than most at the Hardwick Hobble Rasselbock event, completing 3 Laps.
