With a concerted effort being made to try and prioritise the North Midlands Cross Country League this campaign, the proof of those efforts was in the pudding last weekend as twenty-nine turned out over six category races at Markeaton Park, Derby.

The long-standing and prestigious league has only seen one Heanor RC individual champion in its 68-year history – Jon Wainwright, who took the junior men’s crown in 1986 before scooping the senior men’s title four years later.

There were team and individual podium finishes among the juniors, seniors and veterans that flew the flag on Saturday. The renewed focus, however, hit the second-half of the weekend cross country double-header hard for the BDL at Shipley Park on Sunday and the club finds itself in the rather unfamiliar positions of fifth and seventh after the opening fixture.

North Midlands XC League

U13 Lily Winfield got her season off to a good start with second-place over 3k. Lily, who finished first female at the Shelton Striders Fun Run the week before, bettered her performance from last year by two positions (and forty seconds!) to lead the U13 girls team to eighth-place.

Harriet Bull, Ellie Turner, Hollie Spencer and Sophie Hartley all made their North Mids debuts among the 45-strong field.

A quality showing from the HRC senior ladies ensured they secured second – behind a Charnwood AC side led home by race winner and England international, Jane Potter.

Lisa Palmer, who has been selected to represent England in the British & Irish Masters Cross Country International at Wollaton park next month, was first back for the yellow and blue in fourth.

British Masters 10 mile champion Louise Insley (13th) and the in-form Wendy Mullineux (22nd) completed the team scorers.

Wendy Roethenbaugh and Jill Burke were separated by just three seconds in 33rd and 34th respectively whilst the recent PB-setting roadsters Laura Beth James-Hutchinson (44th) and Abbie Leivers (66th) debuted well as they made their first appearances of the season over the mud.

Joe Rainsford was the leading man for HRC in the senior men’s 10k race as the twenty-one year old placed seventh. Cracking the North Mids top-10 for only the second time, Joe led the men’s team to a close third-place finish behind Owls AC and Derby AC.

Completing the scorers were Stuart King (10th), James Mee (21st), Shane Rice (37th) and Danny Heathcote (58th). The next fixture takes place in Kettering on 8th November.

Backing-up the “A” team were Tony Weatherson (98th), Tim Robinson (114th), Alastair Hobday (124th), Rob Page (149th), Ed Godber (172nd), Eddie Baynes (176th) and Paul Winfield (186th), who all took their first points of the 2015 Heanor RC Club Championship.

In the younger age groups, Dylan George – who pipped Lily to the line in last week’s Shelton Striders Fun Run – started his season in the bottom-end of the U15 category with an encouraging twelfth-place finish.

Ben Marsh, William Pullan and Tom Bailey all made their HRC cross country debuts across the U13 & U11 categories.

Full results HERE

BDL XC

Just twenty-four hours later, the opening Ripley RC-hosted BDL fixture saw sixteen take to the line in yellow and blue at Shipley Park.

Stuart King returned from his tenth-place finish at Markeaton Park to take an opening-day BDL victory by fourteen seconds whilst Laura Beth James-Hutchinson also doubled-up to finish fifth female and 106th overall.

Laura led a quintet of women, which featured Lesley Smith (131st), Rita Fisher (152nd), Jo Potter (160th) and Heather Wesson (213th), to seventh on the day.

The senior men lie fifth after the opening fixture, their combined score totalling just over one hundred points behind opening day winners Matlock AC.

Steve Ashmore finished inside the top-6 whilst the returning pair of Lee Perkins and Josh Housley, Glenn Salkeld (56th), Ed Godber (90th), Eddie Baynes (92nd) Mark Tomlinson (117th) and the three Garys – Mellors (38th), Antcliffe (152nd) and Fletcher (142nd) – placed well inside the 237 finishers.

The next fixture will be the second-half of a double-header again and takes place on 9th November at Chaddesden Park.

Full results HERE

Race video courtesy of Señor Paul Clarke HERE