Two top 25 finishers in the National and PBs at the Manchester Indoors

Bury AC had five members who made the long journey up to Sedgefield on Saturday to compete in the prestigious English National Cross Country Championships. Twelve year old Ethan Statham was the first to compete. He was always in the mix after the opening gallop in the under 13 boys race and ran strongly at the finish to prevail in a sprint finish to place 19^th overall, a fantastic performance for the very competitive youngster. He covered the demanding 3km course in 10.53, underlining the quality of his run. In the under 20 men’s race, Bryn Lawrence produced another brilliant performance. The nineteen year old placed 24^th in the quality field in 33.56. In the senior men’s race Jack Griffiths ran strongly to place 350^th in the enormous field. Ed Hunt placed an excellent 466 with Anthony Hallahan placing 631^st out of a field of over 1000 finishers.

Five Bury athletes competed at the Sale Manchester Indoor Open Competition on Sunday. The first events were the 60m sprints with Under 20 Matthew Wheatly competing in the first heat. He placed 4^th with a nippy 7.08, just outside his PB. Luke Drinnan, also an under 20, ran in the 4^th heat, placing 3^rd in 7.60. Under 17 Laila Musmvahiri set a new PB of 8.89 to take 5^th in her heat and under 15 Lydia Catz took an excellent 2^nd in her race with 8.98. Next came the 200m races and there were excellent PBs for Wheatley and Drinnan. Matthew won the 4^th heat in a blistering 22.77 and Luke won the 9^th heat in 24.63. Lydia Catz placed 2^nd in her heat with 29.97, with under 15 Claudia Chapman placing 4^th in the race with a PB of 31.13. Claudia then went on to underline the great form she is enjoying by placing 2^nd in her 600m heat in a new PB of 1.52.20.

On what was otherwise quite a quiet weekend of competition several club members tested themselves at the Saturday morning Parkrun events in the area. Martin Clark had another storming run at Heaton Park, running out as the clear victor in 15.57. Sarah Flett was second woman finisher in 20.59 with Sarah Thomas 4^th in 21.56 and Lizzi Cheshire 7^th in 22.13. Abi Warburton was second woman in the Alexandra Park event in a very respectable 17.57. Emma Stansfield was first woman finisher at Bolton with 22.31 and Rob Fowler made a respectable debut at Clarence Park in Bury placing second in 19.41 on the muddy course.