News reports - December 2023

17th December 2023: PBs all round at 2nd Sale Indoor Meeting

The 2nd in the Sale Harriers Indoor Open series was held at Sportcity on Sunday. This pre-Christmas meeting is always a popular break from Christmas shopping and a chance to test winter training before the Indoor Championships early next year. 

The competitors included eight Southport Waterloo athletes, six involved in middle distance events, a shot putter and - surprisingly - only one sprinter. All went home with new PBs and yet another improved club record for Graham Boreham.

The sprinter was Under 20 Sierra Jalloh.  In the flat 60m she ran 8.09, an improved PB from 8.19 in 2022.  She went on to run a 300m and 43.32 gave her another PB.  Finally, after the circular races, there was an opportunity to run another 60m for those with fuel left in the tank. Sierra stayed for this and ran brilliantly, particularly strongly in the second half challenging the leader, until a hamstring or similar twitch struck just before she crossed the line. Hopefully, she hasn't done any serious damage but, even with that mishap, she recorded a time of 8.10 so an improved PB was very much on the cards.

The shot putter was Under 15 Matthew Nuttall who threw the 4 k shot 9m 45 to improve his PB by 8 cms in just a week.

Graham Boreham was the first of the 600m runners to take to the boards.  He ran 1:26.15 to shave another three hundredths off his PB and Senior club record.

Under 17 Will Rothwell, taking a full second off his time from the 10th December meeting, ran 1:30.84 and then we had three Under 15 Boys running on the indoor boards for the first time. Not surprisingly, Will Delamere won his race in 1:35.13, Eddy Clark ran 1:40.84 and Jake Edwards ran 1:48.74.

Finally, Lucy Delamere had her first trip over the 3 indoor laps and set her PB at 1:52.12.
Running on the indoor boards is all part of the athletics experience and a great indoor option for winter speed work.  I suspect we will see today's runners at future Sale indoor meetings which continue until March 2024.  Note, however, that the next meeting, on 7th January, requires an online entry.  There is no entry on the day which is also a Manchester City home match. 

9th December 2023: Graham Boreham improves his indoor 600m club record

The second of this winter's Northern Athletics Indoor Open meetings was held in the EIS Centre in Sheffield on Saturday and three of our athletes took advantage.  Alice Dobson set a new 60m Hurdles PB running 10.70, Eliza Dobson's shot put of 5m 11 was also a PB but coach Graham Boreham impressed as he improved his Senior 600m club record running the indoor 3 laps in 1:26.18, an improvement of 19 hundredths.  He also ran 39:11 for 300m.

The last indoor open meeting before Christmas is at Sportcity on Sunday 17th December. 

9th December 2023: Storm Elin disrupts Lancaster XC fixture

Last December's Mid Lancs XC fixture at Hyndburn was memorable for the 'Christmasy' snow.  It was less pleasant at Ryelands Park in Lancaster this year with heavy showers and an increasing wind which eventually, during the Senior Men's race, led to our club tent being ripped apart.  The early morning forecast suggested we might be lucky and get all the races run in a gap in the weather but  runners were very lucky to avoid the rain.  By 2.30 Storm Elin hit and made conditions very unpleasant for runners, spectators,  marshals and officials. 

Needless to say, conditions under foot were very wet and increasingly muddy.  But cross country running was never a stroll in the park. 'Character building' as they say! 

As its name suggests, Ryelands in a parkland course, mostly flat but with some undulation, some tree running and some fast stretches - if the gound had been a bit firmer!   A nice, compact course but involving 4 laps for the senior men.

29 Southport Waterloo runners took part; 8 juniors and 21 seniors.  Highlights included a fine win by Will Delamere in the Under 15 Boys' race, a very rare team finish in the Under 11 Boys' race and our Senior Men taking team honours in the MV40, MV50 and MV60 categories.

There was a fairly small field of just 26 Under 11 Girls which includes no Southport Waterloo runners.  However, three of our boys ran in the Under 11 Boys' race over 2 kms.  Thomas Delamere was 13th of the 38 finishers running the course in 7:42, ahead of Caden Walker, 25th in 7:57 and William Paybody, 27th in 7:59.  A 4th team finish was a great result.  We want more please!  

Our two Under 13 Girls did really well to finish 11th and 14th of 49 finishers in their race.  Lauren Silcox ran the 2.4 kms single lap course in 9:09, with Lucy Delamere just 5 secs behind in 9:14.

We had no Under 13 Boys competing at Lancaster.

 Again, we were one short of a team finish in the Under 15 Girls' race over 3.4 kms.  Sydney Monahan Clarkson ran a superb race for a 9th place finish of the 38 girls.  She ran the course in 12:13.  Isla Gray was 30th in 13:50.

We have the runners to medal in the Under 15 Boys' category and Will Delamere showed his potential with a fine individual win in 12:59 for his 2-lap, 4 kms, course.  No support for a team finish today but that's three Mid Lancs wins for Will from three fixtures!

Emily Dean and Amelie Scott were our Under 17 Women running here.  Both confident distance runners, Emily covered the 4 kms in 16:11 for a 5th place of 21 finishers and Amelie was 11th in 17:55.    

We had no Under 17 Men or Under 20 Women or Under 20 Men running at Lancaster.

On then to the Senior Women's race where a good field of 128 runners completed the 6 kms course.  Katie Lee was again a strong competitor  leading our ladies home, in 20th place in 27:03.  Andrea Scarborough is also in fine form and finished 5th LV40 in 27:48 for 27th overall.  Michelle Spencer finished in the top half of the field, 63rd in 30:09 to anchor the team in 2nd place in Div'n 1.  Carole Jame, 5th LV55, completed the course in 30:28, Gemma Delamere in 31:43 and Helen Lodge in 33:35. Andrea, Michelle and Carole were 7th LV35 team, and Michelle, Carole and Helen 9th LV45 team.

Finally, another excellent turnout of 21 of our Senior Men were led home by Ben Johnson in the worst conditions of the day with strong winds and driving freezing rain.  Ben covered the 9.6 kms course in 35:07 for 17th position of 218 finishers. Francois Rafferty kept him in his sights all thru' the race and finished just 4 places behind Ben, 20th and 1st MV50 in 35:42.  David Hamilton was 45th in 37:31, Alex Vernon, 48th in 37:46, John Delamere 53rd in 38:13 and James Paybody was the final team counter. 61st in 38:46. The 'A' team were ranked 4th in Div'n 1 on the day.  David McDonough, 5th MV50, finished in 39:17, John Sprackland 1st MV60 in 41:45, Marc Singer in 41:48, Peter Roome in 41:57, Ken Lennon, 2nd MV60, in 42:13, Neil Adshead, 4th MV60, in  44:06, David Hemmings, 47:21, Andy MacKenzie in 47:45 and Paul Warrington, 49:39.

Francois, John, James and David were our winning MV40 team,  Francois, David and David our winning MV50 team and with positions 2, 3 and 4, John, Ken and Neil were our winning MV60 team! 

Thanks to all team managers - in particular Steve James who suffered an accident on the return home in difficult driving conditions; but is thankfully unhurt - and all runners. Have a restful Christmas and New Year.

Unfortunately, the club tent was also a victim of storm Elin and may not be replaced in time for the Merseyside County Champs in Croxteth Park on 6th January or the fourth Mid Lancs League fixture at Blackpool a week later.  

Results

3rd December 2023: Disappointing outcome for Sportshall Athletics

It hasn't been a great season for sportshall Athletics and no-one is more disappointed than team manager Chris Henders. Fixture 1 of the North West Sportshall Athletics League was fairy well attended at the Kingsway Centre in Widnes where our Under 13 Boys won their competition and our Under 11 Girls were 4th, setting themselves up nicely for a place in the Final in January. However, Fixture 2 at Crewe failed to attract athletes and Fixture 3, albeit a very local fixture held in Liverpool, was again poorly attended.

At Liverpool, in December, seven of our Under 11 Girls competed. They were Emilia Henders, Erin Honess, Harriet Honess, Elouise Payne, Minnie McNally, April Thompson and Esme Wilkinson.  Esme was an event winner, 1st girl in the 4-lap race.  The girls finished 4th again overall. Wirral were 1st with 186.5 pts, then host club Liverpool Harriers with 183, Crewe & Nantwich with 161.5 and Southport Waterloo 4th with 138 pts.  

We almost had one under 11 boy but unfortunately he became unwell and had to return home.

Lucy Delamere was our only Under 13 Girl. Lucy won her 6-lap race and also competed in standing long and triple jumps and shot put, managing to amass 54.5 pts all on her own.

And Henry Summers was our only Under 13 Boy. He won the speed bounce with an incredible 76 in the 30 seconds allowed and also competed in the 2-lap race and the standing long jump.  He too earned good points; 44.5

We had no Under 15s competing.

And, sadly, no age group team will have qualified for the League Final at Widnes on 21st January.  It used to be that the top 5 teams were invited to the Final but the League dropped that to four this season.  If kept at 5, Southport Waterloo, even after a less than spectacular season, would have qualified.

Results for SH1 and SH3 (with no participation in SH2)