Leamington consolidate seventh spot in the Birmingham League

Leamington C&AC's men returned to Warley Woods on Saturday to take part in the third round of the Birmingham Cross Country League, some having only raced there the week before in the Warwickshire County Championships.
Spa Striders ladies line up ahead of the Midland Ladies Cross Country League race at Cofton Park. Picture submittedSpa Striders ladies line up ahead of the Midland Ladies Cross Country League race at Cofton Park. Picture submitted
Spa Striders ladies line up ahead of the Midland Ladies Cross Country League race at Cofton Park. Picture submitted

A different course to the preceding week left some of the runners slightly confused with the twisting course making the most out of the hills.

Callum Hanlon was first home for C&AC and 28th overall in 31min 58sec followed by Phil Gould in 33.39.

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Tom Foulerton (34:09), Keiran Chahal (34:17), Greg West (34:39) and Vassilis Andreoulakis (35:49) made up the A team which finished eighth overall despite missing a few of their usual top six scorers.

The B team benefited from some good packing with Charlie Staveley (37:26), Gavin Fowler (37:31) and Jack Savage (37:36) crossing the line within seconds of each other and completing the team which was led home by Dean Mawby (36:09), Richard Merrell (36:39) and Jason Hill (37:12).

The A team remain in seventh place with the B team climbing to fifth.

Kenilworth Runners produced a solid performance to finish 11th senior team and ninth B team on the day, maintaining their tenth overall team position after the three races.

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Ben Taylor (32:43) had another strong run, finishing 65th overall as did Connor Carson (33:54), who finished 72nd.

Kev Hope (34:53), Stanley Doxey (34:57), Stuart Hopkins (35:12) and Steve Marr (35:24) completed the scorers.

Sixteen Leamington C&AC runners took part in the third round of the Midland Ladies Cross Country League at Cofton Park which saw runners complete two laps of the park followed by a fast downhill finish.

Kelly Edwards ran well to finish second lady in a time of 25:51. Monica Williamson was second home in 27:08 with Megan McDonald (27:19) and Jenny Jeeves (27:52) completing the sixth-placed team.

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Three of the top four also scored for the masters’ team, with Wendy Daniels (28:55) completing the quartet to make their position at the top of the league even more secure.

Elaine Sherwin had a strong run, finishing two seconds behind Daniels.

Kenilworth Ladies put in a strong team performance to consolidate their Division One status, with the senior team finishing 11th and the masters’ team second, Laura Pettifer (28:08), Stef Lunn (29:51), Kelly Burnett-Nicoll (30:02) and Rachel Miller (30:11) scoring.

Spa Striders finished 12th, led home by the returning-to-form Jo Fleming (29:41), closely followed by Kate Gadsby (29:46).

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Claire Murphy (30:08) and Anne Hurrell (30:26) completed the scoring quartet.

Also at Cofton Park, Spa Striders’ men were out in force as they bid to stave off relegation from Division Two of the Birmingham Cross Country League.

The A team finished 11th out of 17 teams on the day but remain in the drop zone.

Chris McKeown (37:34) was the first Strider across the line, followed by Pete Soley (37:58), Adam Notley (38:05), Paul Edwards (38:14), Keith Wilson (39:48) and Ste Taylor (40:19).

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