Senior athletes shine for Mansfield Harriers in North Midlands League opener

The league is open to all UKA affiliated clubs in several counties, has races for U11 right up to masters and is seen as one of the best regional cross country leagues in the country.

The 50+ athletes representing the club put in a string of terrific performances.

The senior and masters race together and the Mansfield women continue to show impressive improvement as they came away with team wins in both categories.

Libby Coleman picked up from where she finished last season with a commanding front running performance to take the win by over 30 seconds.

Hayley Gill ran strongly for eighth and making a welcome return to competing for Mansfield Natalie Yates placed 10th to complete the scoring team.

The masters had a comfortable victory with Kath Malone first back in 32nd, Gillian Newbould 49th and Cristina Dinescu 50th.

Hannah Wragg was an outstanding junior and making a welcome return to competition she placed 25th with Sophie Toyn 39th, Sam Brown 51st, Hannah Colton 61st and another making her club debut, Lottie Riddle, 62nd.

The men are defending both the senior and masters title and a strong team performance saw the men take the win and the masters place fifth in a very close contest and still in a great position to turn the competition around.

Jake Richardson was first athlete home in a terrific third place closely followed by Alex Hampson in fourth and Paul Wright fifth.

Ben Burnham 13th and Dan Nugent 32nd completed the scoring team with Dave Cass 36th, Paul Whittingham 77th and Ben McClemens 93rd scoring for the masters.

Mark Strawther placed 161st, Andy Wetherill 164th, Tom Newbould 170th, Jason Taylor 173rd, Graeme Baguley 195th and Mark Burr 202nd.

Mansfield put out a very strong team in the U15 girls race and came away as clear winners with Charley Whysall second, Lily Mason third, Isla Millns fourth, Emily Pares 12th, Maisy Slack 14th, Myannie Westwood 20th and Martha Walker 29th.

The U17 girls placed second on countback and will hope to go one better next time with Amelia Arbon second, Katie Leese fourth and Amy Newbould 11th.

The U13 girls placed third with Olivia Wright continuing her fine start to the winter in fourth, Evie Clifton fifth, Lauren Pate 19th, Catherine Rivas 23rd and Maisie Lowe 26th.

Esme Evans was the only U11 to compete, finishing a fine sixth out of the 35 finishers.

The U17 boys also came second on countback but Jacob Nugent and Jude Ryan put in a fantastic display of cross country running to place first and second with Charlie Taylor 13th, Oliver Buglass 24th and Finlay Strawther 31st.

Jack Pares had a superb run to place second in the U15 boys only seven seconds behind one of the best U15 athletes in the country as the team placed third.

Ollie McClemens continued his recent form with sixth, Dan Adams placed 21st, Teddy Macintyre 30th and Xander Arbon 40th.

With only two athletes finishing in the U13 boys the team placed sixth.

Mihnea Radu put in his best race to date as he came away with the win supported by Will McClemens who came in 19th.

The club also had two boys in the U11 boys race with Jack Whysall 15th and Max Parish 22nd as the team came ninth.

Two of the worlds major marathons have been held recently with Mansfield having athletes in both.

Racing in Berlin, Joe Henstock put in a massive run to knock a huge chunk from his PB as he recorded 2.38.09.

Sam Brown completed the course in an impressive PB of 3.28.57 too and collect her six star medal for completing all six major marathons.

Her performance was even more remarkable, having raced the Sydney Marathon two weeks before and the Tissington Trail Half the week before.

Racing at the Chicago Marathon, Darren Powell recorded 3.23.40, Natasha Carver comfortably went under her pre-race target to record 3.55.00 and Andrew Longmead recorded 4.30.01.

The Great Eastern Run, based at Peterborough, is raced over the half marathon distance and is also used as a qualifier for England representation honours for a Masters International at the distance. Superb racing from Chris Patterson saw him placed second M40 69.23, Jan Bailey first M45 70.02 and Carolyn Hay first F50 1.23.07.

Barabara Stevens has already qualified, recording 1.45.14 for 5th F65 and Malcolm Goodall finished in 1.57.25 for sixth M70.

The Leeds Abbey Dash 10K has a reputation for being one of the fastest races for the distance in the country, and it did not disappoint this year.

Kristian Watson recorded his best time for over a year with 31.49, Dan Wheat recorded a PB of 33.09, Jordan Boam 34.08, Adam Wright a PB of 35.18, Martin Fickling a PB of 36.31 and Sarah Bradbury a PB of 47.42.

The previous week Martin had shown solid form going into the Dash placing second at the Wild Deer 10K trail race at Thoresby in a time of 39.54 with Amber Morton third female in 52.32.