A quick re-cap. It seems an age ago now when the preliminary rounds of this competition started in October, with over 1500 teams from 500 English schools. They all competed against other local schools from their County and for those that can’t remember, our local round was held at Preston Park. The leading teams from these local competitions then progressed to one of nine Regional finals in early November; this time the North East venue was Stewart Park. And now here we are at the National Finals which pits the three leading teams in each age group in each Region against each other; and we’re delighted to say that 3 of our junior Harriers were competing.
Adam Russell, John Russell and Joe Mulroy were part of the Hummersknott Inter Boys team that were successful in making it this far. Quite an achievement in itself, but now they were up against some of the best endurance athletes in the country, over a tough 4.2k course. For scoring purposes, each team consist of 6 runners with the best 4 scoring for their team.
The boys had to tackle a tough, undulating, mostly grassy course around the grounds of Woodbridge School, Ipswich. As you can see from the details above, they had to run one full lap including the additional square section to ‘K’, then a second ‘shorter’ lap which excluded ‘K’; a grand total of 4200m. Quite a challenge, I’m sure you’ll agree
Continuing his outstanding cross country season with another top drawer performance was Adam Russell. He was the first of the Hummersknott boys to cross the line in an impressive 9th place, with an equally impressive time of 15:06. To finish in the top 10 at this level is a huge achievement, so congratulations, Adam, and a big round of applause from us! Once Adam had finished, there was a flood of athletes crossing the line, and it wasn’t too long before his brother was one of them. John Russell added to his string of impressive runs with a very creditable 36th place today – another excellent time too of 15:46. Once again, at this level, that’s still an outstanding performance, so well done John! Our third Harrier, Joe Mulroy, is still a year younger than Adam, John and a lot of the other athletes here today. It’s already a fantastic achievement to have made it this far, but this was Joe’s first time competing at this level so he went along more for the experience today. As always, that didn’t stop him giving it 100% and he crossed the line in 155th place with an excellent time of 19:03. A fantasticeffort, Joe, well done!