Heanor Running Club shocked and surprised everyone, not least themselves, with the greatest result in the club’s thirty one year history at the English National Cross Country Relays this weekend.

Whilst fourth place at the Midland Road Relays at the end of September was quite an achievement and the top-30 finish in the Nationals three weeks later a pretty decent follow-up, the tenth place finish achieved by the quartet of Stuart King, Chris Rainsford, James Mee and Dale Annable at Berry Hill Park was something else!

Stuart, proving to be a dab hand on the opening leg, paced his run to perfection to move through the field well on the second of two 2.5k laps. Stuart (16:33) overtook a dozen positions to hand over to Chris in 34th.

Chris (16:36) did likewise to move the team within reach of the top-20 for the first time before HRC’s standout man James Mee did his thing on leg three.

James (15:52) continued his rich vein of form to clock the fastest individual time for HRC – and only five seconds off the top-10 of the day overall! – to move the team up into an unprecedented top-10 position.

Dale (16:36), in the unusual position of final leg, saw off the challenge of Midlands rivals OWLS AC to anchor the team home to that remarkable top-10 finish.

Whilst the A team grabbed all the headlines, they weren’t the only ones in action at the weekend as two more senior men’s sides as well as two ladies teams and an U15 girls side (for the first time at the event) also took to the mud in Mansfield.

The foursome of Ben O’Connell (17:51), Darren Ridout (20:10), Tim Holling (18:22) and Steve Ashmore (19:53) saw the men’s second side finish 15th B team (and 92nd overall) out of 157 complete teams whilst Carl Hughes (21:25), Tony Weatherson (20:15), Paul Mercer (22:20) and Paul Winfield (21:41) brought the C team home 131st – Heanor RC being one of only sixteen teams to field three C teams.

Setting the Heanor RC ball rolling at 1:25pm was the U15 girls trio of Danielle Smith, Emily Deeming and Georgia Stirland. Danielle led the team off with an opening effort of 8:28 as Emily copped the worst of the weather on leg two as the wind and rain lashed down.

Emily ran 8:47 and handed over to Georgia who once again brought the team home on the final leg. Georgia completed her 2k lap in 9:22 to see the girls finish 71st in another first for HRC.

Not to be outdone, the senior women’s A team recorded the club’s highest ever finish at the relays with a 31st placed finish.

Perennial hoverers around the 50th mark, the trio of Louise Insley (12:04), Wendy Mullineux (12:21) and Lisa Palmer (11:17) obliterated that mark as they carved their way through the field to go from 53rd on leg one to a magnificent 31st at the finish.

& finally, repeating the men’s B team efforts, Rose Leivers (13:31), Jill Burke (13:20) and Rita Fisher (14:32) crossed the line 15th B team and 71st overall out of 99 complete teams.

Full results