Wakefield Harriers runner Abbey Brooke races to North of England cross country title

Although the weather made it difficult to run on parts of the exposed course Abbey won the U20 Women’s race.

Younger sister Suzie also did well as she finished in a creditable 20th place.

Harriers also had good results in the U13 girls race, with Libby Cree finishing 10th, Rosie Thistlewood 13th and Evie Tunney 15th. Unfortunately with four to score they could not complete a team.

Wakefield did have complete teams in the senior races, with Nicola Steel (76th), Angela Dales (99th), Joanne Biltcliffe (181st) and Georgina Yoh (202nd) finishing 22nd team in the ladies race.

The club had nine runners in the senior men’s race, the six scorers being Steve Lowe (159th), Ashley Crow (186th), Stewart Knowles (236th), Liam O’Flaherty (279th), Thomas Sellers (295th) and Philip Ambler (412th) making up a team that was 25th.

In other age groups there were good individual runs from Ben Shackleton (24th U15B), Jessica Watson (81st U15G), Elliot Prentice (60th U17M), Zachary Rayner (71st U17M) and Holly Walker (49th U17W).

Wakefield’s US based international Amy-Eloise Markovc, meanwhile, has had a good start to her 2022 campaign.

At the UW Indoor Preview Meeting at Seattle in Washington state she won the mile in a new indoor PB time of four minutes, 30.78 secs. Only seven other British women have ever run faster indoors.

At the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold Meeting at New York she finished fourth in the 3,000m in 8:49.49, not far off her PB she set when winning the European Indoor Championships last year.

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Despite the blustery conditions there were some great times recorded by Harriers at the Dewsbury 10Km Road Race at the weekend.

The club had four men inside 33 minutes, to easily win the team prize, and eight men inside 35 minutes, which has not happened for many years.

Mark Bostock finished second in 31:21 and he was well supported by Matthew O’Connor, seventh in 32:21, Daniel Franks, ninth in 32:26 and Ben Butler, 12th in 32:33.

Chris Hunter was first in the M45 category, with a fine new PB of 33:56.

Helen Beck was Harriers’ first lady home in 39:06 and there was a new club F60 record of 53:51 from Diane Simmons.