Following quickly on the heels of the English National XC Championships last weekend, a busy week saw juniors and seniors in action over road and cross country across the UK.

Three days on from their confidence-building exploits at Wollaton Park, Lily Winfield, Emily Deeming and Danielle Smith were joined by Ellie Baker for the Derbyshire Schools Cross Country Championships at Spinkhill.

Lily ran brilliantly to clinch the silver medal in the Year 7 race but will have to wait another year before getting the chance to run at an English Schools XC final due to school age categories.

With selection for the final at Donington Park, Leicestershire on 15th March on the line, good performances from Emily Deeming and Ellie Baker in the Year 8/9 race saw Emily selected as 1st reserve for the Derbyshire team. Danielle Smith unfortunately had to pull out of the race through injury.

Qualification was also up for grabs on the tarmac in Loughborough on Sunday at the London Mini Marathon Trials.

Lily continued her great form to qualify for the U13G East Midlands team for the event next month whilst Emily ran brilliantly to grab a reserve spot after finishing 12th in the U15G event.

Joining the juniors in Loughborough and competing in the second edition of the Join the 5000 event were Stuart King, Joe Rainsford, Paul Winfield, Ben O’Connell and the returning pair of Adam Biggs and Ben Radbourne.

With the Midland 12 Stage Road Relays fast-approaching and selection still to be finalised, the race offered a great opportunity for the senior men to stake their final claims ahead of “A” and “B” team selection for the race on Sunday 16th March.

Stuart and Joe made it two in yellow and blue inside the top-3, with Stuart winning the race by a clear fifteen second margin in 15:47 and Joe (16:27) finishing third after a skin-full the day before.

Ben O’Connell followed up his solid showing at Wollaton Park the previous week with a speedy 17:02 in seventh whilst Adam Biggs (17:36) and Ben Radbourne (18:03) might still be in the running for “A” team selection.

Paul Winfield (21:09) rounded-off the HRC efforts with a 43rd-place finish.

Full results

Kicking the weekend off, Abbie Leivers slashed two minutes off her previous 5k best at the Colwick parkrun. Abbie continues to show big improvements since returning from injury at the end of last year and her new best of 23:38 saw her finish 1st female (!!) and 35th overall out of 138 runners.

Full results

At the home of British Motor Racing, Paul Harpham clocked 1:30.15 in the adidas Silverstone Half Marathon whilst Dale Annable admitted he wasn’t completely satisfied with his result at the Mizuno Reading Half Marathon despite running the third-fastest time of his life.

Dale, who is preparing for his debut marathon in London next month, went through 10k in 31:40 but the fast opening told and he eventually wound-up a still solid and encouraging 37th in 69:22.

Full Silverstone results HERE & Reading results HERE

Seven days before – and just twenty four hours after completing his first ever English National XC – Paul Bratby dipped under the hour at a hilly Huddersfield 10k to finish 408th in 59:59.

Full results

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