Saturday saw the Buxton juniors travel to Loughborough to the British Athletics Inter Counties Cross Country Championships and the 2017/18 Cross Country Challenge Final at Prestwold Hall, drawing to a close an outstanding cross-country series. These National competitions create opportunities for the country’s established and emerging performers to get meaningful competitive opportunities at the highest level. Athletes representing over 40 different counties from all over England, Wales and Scotland each selected teams of 8 athletes to represent their counties.

The courses were traditional, undulating and due to the recent adverse weather conditions – extremely muddy! First up in the under 20 women’s race was Helen Thornhill who came in 72nd out of 170 runners – finishing 1st Derbyshire runner – the team coming in 17th overall.

Next up were the under 17 boys where Buxton’s Jacob Winfield coming back to fitness after injury to come in 204th out of 281 – 5th Derbyshire runner. Local lads Jacob Buckley and Will Tighe also ran in the Derbyshire team packing tight to come in 165th and166 th – 3rd and 4th Derbyshire runners – the team finishing 30th. In the under 15 boys race Sam Soles had a great run to come in 182nd out of 303 runners – 5th Derbyshire runner – the team coming in 18th.

In the under 13 girls race Sienna Philips qualified to run for Staffordshire. She put in a great run to finish 243rd out of 302 runners to come in 5th Staffordshire runner – the team coming in 32nd. The under 15 girls were the last junior race so had the worst of the mud! Buxton Community School trio of Ellie Wilson, Sosseh Badjie and Heather Wilshaw all put in 100% to come in 158th, 199th and 280th respectively – 2nd, 3rd and 5th Derbyshire runners – the team finishing 39th.

Closer to home – Buxton AC hosted the monthly Pavilion Gardens 5k where the juniors had great runs. 14 year old Harry Bond came in first junior (7th overall) in a blistering time of 20:11. David Fryer-Winder came in 9th overall – 2nd junior, with 9 year old Matt Rolfe and 10 year old Will Boardman coming in 4th and 5th junior males, both finishing in new PB times!

In the junior girls category10 year old Grace Bond came in 2nd junior girl with Eve Jones in her first 5k coming in 2nd! & year old Jim Burgess took on 1 lap of the gardens in an outstanding time of 8:43 with a trio of Boardman’s also doing a lap – Jude 2nd, Ella 5th and Lilly 7th. Running 2 laps were Liam Jones in a super speedie 17:40 followed by Freddie Clarke in 18:14.