Author: Alex Hird

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by Geoff Hewitson Last Monday’s fourth NEMAA Track & Field League meeting of the 2024 season turned out to be a particularly successful one, on both a whole club and individual level. The Men’s team racked up a season’s best 126 points (probably our highest total on a single night for quite a while) to move up to 3rd in the League, albeit with just a 2 point advantage over North Shields Poly. Meanwhile our 6 ladies collectively scored 63 points

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by Simon Pickering This was this year's “I’m really not looking forward to this race” event for me, probably down to the fact of last year's organisational nightmares on just about every aspect of the race. I knew they’d changed the route (again…), and thankfully I’d not looked at the route, and certainly the elevation, until a couple of days before. I don’t think I’d have bothered if I had! The route now started outside the Radisson Blu, going down the waterside, then

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by Andy Turnell Due to the races on Wednesday and Thursday there was a reduced representation for Crook AC at the Newcastle Frontrunners LGBT 5k this year with 6 participants in the race. A small but perfectly (ahem) formed team. We had a lot to live up to after Milo's exceptional run in the Junior 2k. What he didn't mention was that he was first back of all the runners, beating the U11 boys and girls as well as those in his

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by Brad Wight Me and my 10 year old daughter Adelaide went down to South Park for the monthly mile. Heather Jones was also there. It's a very similar route to the parkrun, only you take the high road along the river meaning you don't have to do that little hill. Usually it's a proper handicap where runners line up beside a cone with your predicted time on and are released at ten second intervals on the whistle. Unfortunately, due to one

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by Brad Wight Myself and Sam Etherington travelled up Weardale to St Johns Chapel last Tuesday night. We thought it might be hard to get parked in a small village but there's a decent sized car-park right beside the village green where the start line was. Torrential rain in Bishop and Crook probably put a lot of people off entering as numbers were half what they normally are but the weather was perfect up the dale. Mild with a tiny hint

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by Amanda Taylor This Northern Athletics 5k Championship race welcomed a squad of 11 Crook runners - 10 lads and me - to join almost 500 other athletes in this fast, traffic free, road race. Billed as one of the fastest courses in the country, it's ideal for anyone looking for a PB and of course, I was. On arrival I bumped into Clare R with Harry then Mark S and Lee T who were all telling me I should go for

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by Geoff Hewitson The third NEMAA Track & Field League meeting of the 2024 season took place last Monday evening at the usual venue of Monkton Stadium in Jarrow. The overall turnout from the club was 14 (9 in the mens team and 5 in the ladies). Most of these were the “usual suspects” but there was also a welcome return to NEMAA competition for Sharron Trevor, who reckoned it was about 15 years since her last appearance at the Track

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by Brad Wight Myself and Alex Hird traveled down for the third meet of the series. We’d attended the first event and really liked the atmosphere. This time we weren’t the only representatives of the North East. Darlington Harriers had a few athletes out and a lad from Jarrow and Hebburn won the elite high jump. Hirdy and I both went in the same heat of the mile, Alex took the win in a cracking time of 4:44.44 and I battled

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by Brad Wight I entered this event in Leeds as I was away overnight with work. I’d raced the night before at a small scale one mile race in Lincoln and I’d mistakenly thought this would also be another race with a couple of dozen runners max but I was very wrong. On arriving at the park I realized it was quite a bit bigger than that! Club tents, coffee and food vans, the big inflatable finish line, digital timing board,

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by Brad Wight Given that we aren’t currently part of the North East youth or senior track and field leagues, it’s not too often we get a chance to race on our own track. Thankfully the league put on a Friday night open meet and Crook showed up in good numbers! Six of us took part in the Mile. Alex Hird finished in second place with track debutantes Alex Mitton and Andy Simpson coming very close to breaking the 5 minute mark.