Don Hale Blog

*The NWRRC ladies team at Bangor (*l-r) Cheryl Frost, Gwennan Charlton and Kay Hatton. Back to the mud and hills for the first cross-country fixture of the season at Treborth, Bangor. Report by Don Hale. Photos by Steve Jeffery and Lesley Goodson. https://donhaleblog.blogspot.com www.welshmastersathletics.co.uk   Five members of North Wales Road Runners entered the first North Wales Cross-Country League fixture of the season, well-organised by hosts Eryri Harriers at Treborth, near Bangor, last Saturday, and staged over a rather muddy, hilly, and challenging series of varied courses. With different distance routes offered in respect of ages, and male and female races, ranging from juniors to masters, the general feedback was most encouraging with many runners welcoming a positive return to some sort of normality following an enforced period of uncertainty. NWRRC members ran in either the senior women’s race, or the senior men’s event, over approximate distances of 3.5-miles, or 5.5-mil

North Wales Cross Country League Some interesting comments about cross-country courtesy of Cybi Striders... https://donhaleblog.blogspot.com www.welshmastersathletics.co.uk Most of us think of Cross Country (XC) as being wet, muddy and one of those PE lessons we used to try and avoid at all costs. However, the NWXC league is quite different (apart from the mud!)  The league runs over 5 events from October to February across North Wales and Shropshire with a variety of clubs in attendance, and runners of all styles and speeds taking part. Whilst there is a club element to the league, the individual competition is the main draw for many runners. Some runners even turn up to be the only club representative in some rounds, especially where they clash with other events! The XC rounds are held on Saturday afternoons; juniors in the morning. The first event starts at 1pm and is the Women, U17 Men and over 65 Men competing over courses of roughly 4 miles. The Senior Men start at 2pm and gener

*Pictured above - the Welsh Masters team that competed against England. England v Wales Masters 5km International Mid Cheshire August 2023. Report courtesy of the Welsh Masters team  manager  Bernie Jones. Although England came out on top in the overall Team Competition there were some great performances by Welsh Athletes in the latest Masters Internationals.The 5km international, held within the very fast and popular Mid Cheshire 5km, was won by England’s Ian Lawton (Mersesyside Tri ) but Matt Rees (Swansea) had a great run to lead the Welsh contingent home finishing in 14-53 with clubmate Matt Harvey not far behind in 15-09. As usual our first woman home was Donna Morris (Builth) who ran 17-38.   Individual podiums were sparse as England had chosen very strong teams but once again Lee Aherne (Parc Bryn Bach) showed his class by winning the M55 age group with a 16-43 run and Gordon Jones (Prestatyn) was an emphatic winner of the M65 category in 18-12. There were two other podium place