Aycliffe athletes Sue and Peter Milburn, Dez Fielden and Judith Porter headed to North Yorkshire to compete in the Shaun Lee Johnstone Memorial 10 mile race. The run is organised by Ray Johnstone whose son Shaun died of a brain tumour aged 16 with profits to the Teenage Brain Tumour Trust in his name.
Last year’s run was extremely wet with a small stream to cross at about the 2 mile mark. The farmer did some drainage work and the stream and mud had disappeared. Some runners were apparently disappointed but the Aycliffe contingent was not among them! The weather was good and surprisingly warm. The route is multi terrain and very close to the A1 at Boroughbridge. It follows lanes, edges of fields and a short tarmac stretch through the village. The race attracted 131 runners.
Sue managed a time of 1:31:47. Dez was first home for Aycliffe in a time of 1:08:15 and was 11th overall, closely followed by Peter in 1:14:15; Judith was very pleased to see Peter and Dez run back to meet her and push her along for the last mile finishing in 1:33:41.
In the North East Harrier League 5 runners went to compete in the series opener in Blaydon. The event was well attended by club runners with 309 ladies and 575 men in addition to several junior races. Each category ran separately but with a course that was quite narrow in places this did make the first half a mile of the run difficult as runners jostled for position.
For the ladies team there was Kelly Smith, Kelly McCormack, Sue Milburn and Judith Porter. The sole representative for the Aycliffe men was Peter Milburn. Underfoot the conditions were grassy with only a few muddy patches. The course was 1.6m and was mostly flat but about 200 metres from the end there was a series of three short moderate hills in very quick succession.
With a bit of mud building up on the corners the downhill sections did prove tricky for some runners. The ladies completed two laps and the men three laps. The Aycliffe ladies team ended in 16th position in division 2 with the best three results counting. Kelly was 137th with a time of 24:05, Sue 155th in 24:29, Shelley 157th in 24:31; Judith was 258th in 27:21. Peter was 266th with a time of 32:43. Penny Johnson completed the 5.4k Whitby cross-country in 29:35 which was only 12 seconds slower than 2 years ago.