Worksop Harriers are on form at cross-country event

The Worksop Harriers gather ahead of the race. They went on to impress.

It was a mixture of good clean fun and good muddy fun for the Worksop Harriers as their Senior Athletes took part in the local cross-country series over at Clowne while the Juniors kept it indoors with their Sports Hall competition, writes John Harrison.

Match 2 of the local XC series was hosted by Clowne where some recent cooler temperatures made the course a bit more runnable than recent XC events.

It certainly wasn’t a gentle stroll though with a rolling course covering around 5.5 miles and 600+ ft of elevation gain.

With both the men’s and women’s team seeing the return of a few recent absences there was scope for improvement from Retford and both teams taking advantage for some great results.

The men’s team, led home by Tom Shaw (3rd), saw a huge improvement from Paul Marriott (15th), as well as advancement from Bryan Cherry. With the return of both Matt Daly and Matt Chappel (20th, 19th and 23rd) and Kerry Saville and David Clubb (28th and 43rd) rounding out the scoring men, the team finished second overall.

The ladies were also on hand to match this result with another great performance and this time pushing right on first-placed Retford. The ladies were led home by a returning Charlotte Jones (4th), with big performances by Sarah Worley and Amy Ogden (6th and 7th) putting three Worksop Ladies in the top ten.

The scoring ladies were rounded out with Charlotte Rushby (16th), Samantha Marriott (22nd), closely followed by Tanja Maric and Cathy Mhembere (24th and 27th).

With Worksop providing 20 Men and 17 Ladies from the field of 176 runners it meant not only was it a great representation of the green and black within the field but also meaning they put enough runners to obtain maximum points.

The Juniors were also in action with their indoor sports hall competition. This competition provides a range of Track and Field based activities including sprints, hurdles, obstacle relay, standing long and triple jump, balance board and indoor javelin.

These competitions are for U11's to U15's age range and provide a fun and functional setting to help older juniors practice key skills as well as an introduction for younger athletes to many of the basic skills.