Author: Alex Hird

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by Paul Campbell I found out about these events through previous Crook-Eds, and thought it ticked plenty of boxes, including being close to home, and not breaking the bank to enter. For anyone who hasn’t ran one of these, its essentially a 4.4 mile lap, and participants do as many or as few as they like, within a cut-off time.I thought it would be a good test of fitness and distance for the Great North Run having been injured for most of

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by Dawn Milburn 2023 saw our Keswick Mountain Festival (KMF) debut with us taking on the 10km course. The real draw of this was the start on the boat and the anticipated views over Derwentwater. Possibly the most beautiful race we have ran, we wanted more! 2024 saw us take on the 25km trail event. With a start in Keswick’s famous Crow Park, a picturesque start line overlooking the serenity of Derwentwater and Catbells, it was set to be a beautiful day.

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by Brad Wight You may remember I entered this race last year, it’s a famous old race on the border of Cheshire and Staffordshire dating back to the early 1980s. It was intended to be the opposite of New York City’s slightly downhill Fifth Avenue Mile which attracts the best milers in the world. The Killer Mile is a road race, exactly a mile long, but up a ridiculously steep hill with gradients ranging from 12% to 25% and 550 feet

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By Brad Wight The North East Counties champs were held at Middlesbrough Sports Village over the weekend of 11th and 12th May. On Saturday Rory and William Hart were joined by Matty Richardson in the 1500m while Jess Montgomery raced over 800m as well as the 100m and 200m. Alex Hird raced in the senior mens 400m. Sunday action saw Matty and Alex return for the 800m, joined by Brad, and Jess compete over 300m where she progressed through her heat to

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by Geoff Hewitson A total of 43 teams took part in this popular mixed team format relay on the site of the former Consett Steelworks. The course is a challenging loop of approximately 2.1 miles with the notorious hill coming near the end. Our Club has enjoyed a great deal of success in this event, having either won it or finished in the top 3 on several occasions. In 2023 we finished 3rd, were runners-up in 2022, and overall winners the

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by Paul Wragg Training for a good time or training for a good time? I’ve never been one for training for races, unless it’s anything over a 1/2 marathon. So after 5 days in Magaluf and with a couple of runs under my belt I thought I would stamp Club Championship Race #2 in the book. After 5 days in the heat and all the edges of working day life washed away like a stone on the shore of Palma Nova, I

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By Andy Turnell This was my third time at the Gateshead Half. I've started to look on it as a useful early season benchmark for how I'm doing at longer distances.Last year I manage to finish first in the V65 category and was hoping for a similar result this time. Crook had 3 entries in the 10k but I was the sole representative in the half. The race starts and finishes in the Gateshead International Stadium and is well organised with start

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by Milo Pickering Me and Caleb arrived at Gateshead stadium about 1 hour before the race. First we got our chip and race number. To kill some time before the race we played some of the activities which were Bean bag toss and giant connect four. We also watched some of the half and full marathon runners come in, then it was time for the warm up. In the warm up we did jogging on the spot and some high knees then

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by Geoff Hewitson Last Wednesday evening (1st May) the ‘team relay season’ was in full swing, with the ever popular Neptune Relays at Sedgefield clashing with the NEMAA (North East Masters Athletic Association) Road Relay Championships. Whilst our club had a massive presence at Sedgefield, it was just the one MV65+ team of Mark Standbridge, Andy Turnell and myself who made the trip to Jarrow to fly the flag for Crook AC. Our event took place in its usual home of Bedewell

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by Geoff Hewitson A reasonable turnout of 9 Crookites were present for this annual event, much healthier than in 2023 when I was the sole club representative, and 2022 when I think it was just Stan and myself. A less than encouraging weather forecast (to put it mildly) for Sunday morning unfortunately proved to be spot on, and we were greeted on arrival with lashing rain and what felt like a freezing cold Northerly wind. As we took refuge inside the