Horwich RMI Harriers fell runners were cheered to hear that the M40 team have won the English Fell Running Championships team bronze medal behind Calder Valley and Helm Hill.

It followed a gruelling season of six races which Danny Hope described as “a season of hard running, commitment and an endless supply of physio tape” as injuries took their toll.

Some of that same squad then took on the tough Lee Mill fell relays at the weekend.

Dan Gilbert, the Harriers’ club fell captain led the team with Julian Goudge, Sam Fairhurst and Ian Conroy to third place in a race that always attracts a large field of top teams.

Closer to home on the Darwen moors, it was the David Staff Memorial fell race where Graham Schofield and Paul Boardman were first and second M60 and Tony Varley was first M70.

At Kirkby Moor it was Suzanne Budgett’s first race as a V60 and she duly won the age category.

There was a big field of runners at Sefton Park in Liverpool for a round of the British Athletics Cross Challenge featuring the 3rd round of the Red Rose XC league.

There was success here too for Kitty Crossland winning the under-11 girls race and she now leads the RRXC series table.

Lily Mort had a top 10 finish and with Maddison Wilkinson they were fifth team. The Horwich vets had a great 1-2-3 at M65 for Steve Williams, Gordon Stone and Steve Jackson. Tony Hesketh was first M70 and leads the series in that category too.

There were age category second places for Charlotte Wilkinson at under-17 and Mark Walsh at M50.

Richard O’Reilly had a busy weekend, finishing 3rd for M55 at the Cross Challenge race and then the following day he ran the Wilmslow 10k road race and was pleased with a sub-40-minute run to be the highest Horwich runner in the M55 category.

There were over 3200 finishers at Wilmslow; Luke Foley was the leading Harrier in 21st place 31:54 and Ironman UK winner George Martindale was returning to racing with a 33:40 time for 46th place.

It was the latest round of the Sportshall competition and coach Siy Sherlock reports that every one of the club’s juniors did the club proud with some outstanding performances from Anna, Sarah, Thea, Malachi, Joshua, Jack and Joel.

Joel Ige as the only Horwich junior in the under-13 category set the standard with top results in both track and field events.

Siy said: “I'm really proud of all our competitors today, looking forward to the next one in two weeks-time.”

In parkrun, Joe Mercer was first finisher at Marple and Lindsey Brindle was 5th at Haigh Woodland, first woman finisher. Mary White ran the Worsley Woods parkrun for the first time and was a clear first place in the age grading with 86.15 per cent, over 4 per cent points ahead of the second placed runner.

The Middleton’s went international with Jason achieving a mid-table finish at Amsterdamse Bos parkrun as his son, Toby won a traditional Thanksgiving Turkey Trot race at the Sam Lapidus Montclair 10k race in Alabama in 16mins 05secs.