The Harriers had a mud bath to contend with at Saturday's (Feb 21st) English Cross Country Championships at Parliament Hill, London. Despite conditions underfoot some of them were still smiling at the finish! Whlst Kieran Young had the best Harrier finish position, of 27th in the Junior men's race his elder brother Nathan was just outside the first 100 amongst the 2000 finishers in the senior men's race. Meanwhile at Corwen in North Wales Matthew Dickinson competed for the first time in the Welsh Cross Country Championships and ran brilliantly for a silver medal in the junior men's race.
Matthew Dickinson finished 2nd in the Welsh Nationals race for junior men over the 7km course with a great time of 23.05. He was the only Harrier at these Championships held at Corwen near Llangollen.
For many Harriers the 'Nationals' is the holy grail of running - with a great race pedigree and some illustrious winners going back over the years. The first English National Championships were held in 1876 and this year's event saw almost 8,800 athletes enter by the deadline in the various age group races. The Harriers have provided the National Champion twice when Frank Tickner won the Senior men's event in 2007 and 2009.
This year Frank's older brother Ben, who is also a Life member of the Harriers. finished 5th in the senior men's race wearing the colours of his new Club, Brighton Phoenix. Nathan Young was first home for the Harriers with 43.38 for the 12km course for 103rd place. Paul Allen finished in 52.30 for 796th. there were 2005 finishers. One can only imagine just how muddy the course was when the men were racing the circuits as that was the last race of the day!
Racing first for the Harriers, with all races starting with the traditional lung-bursting/lactic acid inducing hill, was Charlotte Baker in the u17 women's race who finished an excellent 56th in 21.50 for the 5km course. Then we had a trio of keen u15 boys giving their all over a 4.5km circuit - led home by Dylan Dukes in 138th with 18.21, then Luke Baker 298th in 20.08 and finally Kieran Ensor in 21.49 for 352nd. That's some good running!
the u15 girl’s race was the 6th race of the day and as the accompanying photographs will show (thanks to Al Thorner) the surface was well and truly churned up by then. That makes their efforts all the more remarkable: Caitlin Carnegie came through for 32ndin 16.35, with Elise Thorner 46th in 16.49, and Sophie Hamilton 52nd in 16.56. as you can tell from the times it was all pretty close.
Kieran Young was our only entrant in the Junior men’s race over 10km and his time of 36.01 and finish position of 27th is a great achievement. As was the run by Tom Loader in the next race, the u13 boy’s race - imagine how he must have felt at the bottom of that starting him with a field of mud before him! Tom was 134th out of 395 finishers in a time of 13.56. We will all applaud his efforts at Monday's junior training session!
Full Results here: http://www.englishcrosscountry.co.uk/news/2015-nationals-results-pdf/