Harrier League Race 3 – Town Moor

Thankfully the heavy overnight snow that hit the region in the early hours of Saturday 30th January proved to be no match for the officials at Elswick Harriers, who were responsible for hosting what was tabled as the third meeting, (actually the 2nd as the previous round at Cramlington was cancelled due to the adverse weather) of the Start Fitness sponsored North Eastern Harrier League, at Newcastle's Town Moor. So the decision that this event could go ahead, despite the 2 to 3 inches of snow underfoot, was welcome to all and allowed nearly 500 runners to have some competition.

An icy wind meant the majority of clubs erected their club tents behind the protection of the hedge bounding Exhibition Park. As this location was at least 200 metres from the Start/Finish area, Blyth decided that they would brave the artic weather and erect their tent at the Start area to save their runners the long cold wait as they were called up for their events. The Club tent seemed to act as an oasis for the other clubs who seemed pleased to gain some respite from the biting wind.

Although the weather had put a good number of Blyth runners off we still had runners in the majority of events, with full teams in both the senior women’s and men’s races.

As for the race itself the icy wind blowing against the runners, combined with the snow underfoot made it quite hard on the outward journey, and it wasn’t until the runners had covered two-thirds of the 2.1-mile short lap that the wind and ground conditions became more favourable. Thankfully for the junior contingent they didn’t have to contend with the two very large mounds known as Cow Hill, and I’m sure the seniors were just as grateful they only had to contend with these hills once on the last lap.

In all Blyth had 22 members taking part on the day and I’m sure they all enjoyed it to some degree.

The Juniors had to run one lap of just over 2 miles which was on flat ground and conditions were relatively good as the Under 13 boys races was set off. Mark Nicholson was first back for Blyth in 20^th, followed by Joseph Dungworg in 23^rd , with Joseph Woods in 30^th and Steven Doris in 34^th.

In The Under 13 girls race, Blyth only had one runner but Charlotte Ramsay obviously found the conditions to her liking as she finished in second place, the best finish by a Blyth runner.

For the Under 15 Boys,Jake Jansen finished in seventh place with Scott Goodfellow in 12^th.

The Under 17 women had to run 2 laps, a distance of just over 4 miles and Blyths Emma Freeman finished in 11^th place with Steph Ramsay in 13^th.

The Senior Men and Ladies races both included two steep hills for the runners and Susie Hunter was first Lady back for Blyth with a good strong run to finish in 21^st position and lead the ladies to 7^th team on the day and equal 8^th position in the league. Making up the team were Helen Morris (36^th), Julie Lemin (52^nd), Phillippa Baxter (80^th) and Sharon Richardson (111^th). The mens race was over 6.6 miles and the first man back for Blyth was Robbie Barkley in 64th position running from the medium pack, also in the medium pack was Craig Birch who finished in 141^st position, the only other Blyth runner to finish inside the first 200 was Steve Richardson who finished 184^th . The other Byth finishers were Dave Bradley (223^rd) Ralph Dickinson (279^th), Iain Singer (287^th), Keith Willshire (295^th) and Terry Hart (296^th). The men finished 9^th team on the day and currently lie bottom of the league with relegation a strong possibility.

Full results at race-results.co.uk.