This weekend saw the 2nd in the English Junior Fell Championships at Blacko Hill, Lancashire. The Buxton Juniors were out in force with 24 youngsters making the journey representing the club in every age group from under 9 to under 19. It was a glorious Spring day but not warm enough to dry out the bogs up on the moors which claimed many a fell shoe!
First up were the under 9 team with Hannah Cudahy and Lexi Tomlinson making their fell running debut’s coming in 28th and 29th girls. When asked how she found the race, 6 year old Hannah said, “It was so bumpy it made my eyeballs bounce!” Jimmy Golden in his second fell season came back from a difficult start to come in 36th boy. Also making his fell debut was Liam Jones in the under 11 boys category – he was supported throughout by Henry Hazelhurst now an experienced fell junior to come in 48th and 49th. Lucy Whelan led in the girls under 11 team to finish in 17th, followed by Molly Golden and Rachel Cudahy in 36th and 38th. Grace Longden was also taking part in her first fell race and had an absolute belter to finish 8th under 13 girl. Team mate Rebecca Cudahy came in 46th.
The medal winning performance came in the under 15 boys race with Will Longden improving on his last race performance where he was just outside the top 3, this time storming to second! Team mates Matt Schofield and Caleb Winfield both improved their positions in the Championships coming in 14th and 24th. The girls also improved their positions Lucy Bednall up 2 places to come an outstanding 4th and Amy Whelan up 5 places to 15th.
The under 17 race saw similar progression with Finn Moffatt up 4 places to 7th and Stu Diamond up 8 places to 10th. Luke Mamczur in his first performance this season came 14th and Heather Wilshaw maintained her place at 16th U17 girl. In the U19 race Jacob Winfield finished strongly in 8th position and Dan Soles moved up the table to come 9th.
Closer to home Buxton junior Jacob Miller took part in the infamous “Chicken Run” were around 100 runners take on a challenging 5.5 mile race out of Hayfield with 1056 ft of ascent. Jacob had a great run to come in first under 18 runner.
Buxton AC’s junior park runners also had a great weekend with Buxton’s own monthly Pavilion Garden’s 5k. Ben Hawtin came in first junior finishing 7th overall in a blistering 21:27. Sienna Phillips was 1st junior female (2nd female overall) in an outstanding 22:28.
Ryan Rawlinson represented the club at the Stoke Open Track and Field Meet. He had an amazing day starting with the 800m where he earnt a Bronze medal with a personal best performance. He followed this by knocking nearly a second off his best 100m time earning a Gold medal, a performance that he then replicated in the last race of the day – the 150m – outstanding!
Photos: U17/19 team, Will Longden leading the way up the hill